By EricRat on Friday, June 01, 2001 - 10:32 am: Edit

I recently bought a '96 Disco with 88,000 miles on it, I am please to see a fair number of high milers in the neighborhood. I knew when I bought it the Brits can't keep oil in or water out, and I haven't been disappointed. Despite a little water on the passenger floor, and a quart per 300 mile oil habit I am bitten and love the truck.

I am having trouble finding the leak, the dealer hasn't been very helpful, I don't see a lot of oil on the pan, a bolt or two have a drop of oil hanging from them. The bottom of the transmission is a bit oily. I pulled the flywheel cover off and everything is spotless. I am assuming that if it was leaking at the rear main that the flywheel would be oily right?

I know this is going to be bear to find any suggestions are welcome.

Thanks,

Eric

By Jon on Friday, June 01, 2001 - 11:45 am: Edit

Has the engine been rebuilt recently? That sounds very similar to what happens when your piston rings haven't been properly seated, as a typical rebuild would require breaking the engine in, and that may not have been done properly. Likewise, worn rings will allow a lot (or in your case, a LOT) of blow-by. Take your finger and wipe the inside of the exhaust tip. If there's a thick build-up of carbon deposit, your leak is in the engine. Also, your valve guides could be worn and leaking a lot. And the heads have drain holes in them for the oil to drain back down into the pan from the valvetrain etc. It's not impossible for these holes to become clogged, which would gum up your valves and lead to excess oil burning. This is probably the easiest thing to fix, since all you really got to do is pull the valve covers and clean all that gunk out and clear-up the drain holes.

To fix piston rings, you'd need a partial rebuild, which won't be cheap anywhere, let alone the dealer. Valve guides would require substantial head work, but probably wouldn't cost as much as installing new rings. Personally, I would pull the valve covers first and check out that situation. New vavle cover gaskets are substantially cheaper than headwork or a ring job. You'd be able to look down your oil filler nozzle and see the general cleanliness of the valves directly below it, but that won't really indicate if you have some stopped drain journals. Hope this helps some...

By Jarrod on Friday, June 01, 2001 - 02:26 pm: Edit

you can try to use a UV dye found at NAPA. Just dump the little bottle of stuff into the oil and drive it around for a little bit (50 miles or so) and look with a UV light/black light. It'll show up a bright yellow. Helped me find a leak in the main seal a while back.