Smoking badly

MARTIN RIDGWAY

MEMBER
2003 RAM 1500
4.7L
V8
2WD
AUTOMATIC
200,000 MILES

Okay, I bought this truck from a friend. He had a "mechanic" rebuild the engine, but it took a judge to get it finished after a year of waiting. I bought the truck and within 500 miles it started smoking like a mosquito fogger (only worse, really. ) It is white smoke, but it's also definitely oil smoke. It uses about two quarts of to travel 30 miles. After it warms up most of the smoke either stops or turns black. The black smoke is a very small amount and generally only under power or acceleration. It is not coolant. I don't experience overheating or loss of antifreeze, it just uses as much oil as fuel. The compression is 150 across all cylinders and a couple have built up oil fouling, the rest are actually wet with oil around the threads, but the electrodes are normal looking. I'm hoping that it's either bad valve seals or maybe no oil seals. Someone said oil rings installed upside down, but I'm at a loss. Also, I've heard that there is a tool set that allows you to pressurize the cylinders with compressed air and change valve seals without pulling the heads, which would be ideal. Any information or insight would be great! Thanks in advance! I'm a disabled veteran and I am very mechanical, but can't climb around on motors like before, but can do some and can't afford a shop.

1 Reply

KASEKENNY

MECHANIC
18,907 POSTS

Hi Martin,

With that amount of oil it has to be coming past the oil control ring. It would be easiest to start with the valve stem seals but there is just not enough oil sent to the top of the engine to cause this amount of usage. There is a tool to put air into the combustion chamber and it is just the compression gauge rubber line with the schrader valve removed so that you can blow air in. Just regulate your compressor down to 30 PSI. Too much air pressure and you will push the piston down.

A compression check would not show if there is an issue with your oil control ring because the compression ring is the top ring and is completely separate from the oil ring.

As for the ring being installed upside down, that is not true for the oil control ring but it is for the intermediate ring.

Here is a video that explains what each ring is and what it does:

https://youtu.be/Wadmzv1Vs0Q

Unfortunately, I don't know of a way that you can test to see if your oil control rings are installed properly or even there other than disassembling it and checking it. With this much oil, they are either not there or possibly not the correct rings. Maybe installed in the wrong positions. I have more faith in mechanics that they would not just leave them out purposefully but I have to imagine that he did something wrong in relation to the oil rings.

Take a look at this material and let me know what you think and we can go from there. In the meantime, I will do some more research to see if there is a way to find this out without disassembling the engine. Thanks

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Smoking badly

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