Well, I figured out where all of my oil is going..

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chevrofreak

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..and why the tops of my pistons had such a layer of carbon!

My car has been using a LOT of oil, especially since I switched to 5W-20 and added Auto-RX. I noticed once when I had the intake tube off that there was some oil visible inside where the PCV valve hose vented into the throttle body elbow.

Recently, I had found out that the 4.6L engines like to put a lot of oil through the PCV line. I've seen oil separator kits available, such as the one from Steeda for a whopping $70. These are literally nothing more than an oil/water separator for air compressor hoses.

Harbor Freight sells small inline oil/water separators for $3.99, and I figured I would just buy one of these to try. They're on sale for $2.99 right now. I bought one, along with two male quick hose couplers to use as hose barbs. One male threaded the other female. I then stopped at O'Reilly and bought 4 feet of 3/8" fuel hose at 99 cents per foot.

Put it all together, toss in a few zip ties and this is what you get.

oilseparator1.jpg


Grand total was $8.93, and it resulted in this much oil being prevented from carboning up my combustion chamber....

oilseparator2.jpg


after only 20 miles of driving!

I think if it's not too much of a pain, I'm going to save the oil I drain out of it to filter and put back into the engine after I let the fuel evaporate out of it for a while.
 
Great job, what kind of car do you have, this would be a great thing to do on my Marauder that has the 4.6 engine. Luckily I have a Harbor Freight near me.
 
Yeah, if it keeps catching that much stuff I'm going to need a way bigger one. But, that isn't a fuel filter, it's an oil/water separator for air lines. It has an easy release valve on the bottom for releasing the trapped liquid, and I'll have to do it every couple days until I put a bigger can on.
 
How many miles do you have on this engine and are you the original owner, are you on the Clean Phase of Auto-Rx, it looks like Auto-Rx is really liquifying any junk in your engine.
 
125,500, and I'm the 3rd owner. It was a police cruiser for about 80,000 miles, then an old couple bought it from the police department, and I bought it from them.

I'm around 1700 miles into the clean phase. The Auto RX started turning black after only 50 miles (I drove it HARD for those first 50 miles) and just kept going. The oil really is extremely dark, and it shows pretty well in that container. It looks dark on the dipstick, but not as dark as it really is.

I started with Pennzoil yellow bottle 5W-20 and added a left over 1/2 quart of Trop Artic 10W-30 synblend when it was needed. I've added about 1-1/2 quarts of Mobil Clean 5000 5W-20 during this time as well. It seemed to darken up faster after adding the Mobil 5000. That almost makes me want to use the 5000 for the rinse phase instead of the Motorcraft 5W-20 I have, except that my rinse phase will be during a Montana winter and I figured the synblend would be better protection for the engine when it dips down to 0.
 
Your oil turned black after 50 miles, if the oil is dark on the dipstick then you are right about it being darker in the oil pan, are you or have you changed your oil filter yet. This is just a thought, have you contacted Frank to let him know what is going on.
 
Gary, as long as he is working on the problem with ARx or whatever, he should keep manually draing it so he see's how much oil is being captured. That way, if there is any improvement, it will show.
 
Originally Posted By: c3po
Your oil turned black after 50 miles, if the oil is dark on the dipstick then you are right about it being darker in the oil pan, are you or have you changed your oil filter yet. This is just a thought, have you contacted Frank to let him know what is going on.


I changed the filter after 1024 miles because I started seeing a drop in oil pressure. I cut the old one open, and while the media was dark, it wasn't clogged with sludge. What did concern me is that some of the pleats were pretty crooked. This was a Motorcraft FL-820S, made by Purolator, so the crooked pleats came as a surprise.

Oil pressure went back up, but I have about 700 miles on the new filter and I think I'm starting to see the pressure drop again.
 
I have a catch can on my neon that is made by BWoody. It's a really nice piece. Can't remember how much they are new, but they aren't $70 I believe.
 
Do not route it back into the valve cover! This stuff is not only oil, but water with acids, and other harmful blowby products.
I find the filters on the Harbor Freight AW separators to be restrictive, compared to the ones at Home Depot.
Also, for anyone else, watch out which one you get if you buy Harbor Freight's version - the bottom dump valve works on pressure, not vacuum. I have not seen the type chevofreak has, but it is a suitable type , being inline. You have to mount it straight up and down, though.
 
I checked the dump valve and it still holds a good seal under vacuum. Enough vacuum would potentially open it, but I don't think my engine can do it.
 
I drained that oil out last night and I figure it was about a tablespoon. There's about 125-150% as much in there tonight, after about 50 miles. I did drive hard, but not as much time near redline as last night.

I think this could account for most of the oil that my car has been consuming.
 
Originally Posted By: XS650
Gary, as long as he is working on the problem with ARx or whatever, he should keep manually draing it so he see's how much oil is being captured. That way, if there is any improvement, it will show.


Good point.




living example of recursive linguistics in chaos ..living in a Jack-built house.
 
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