High oil consumption

[F14CRAZY]

Hey guys. I'm planning on taking my '92 XL on a trip to Florida. I'm not really worried about it, but the thing uses quite a bit of oil.

If it's right after I change it (been using 10w30 name brand conventional in warm weather, 5w30 when cold), it may be a few hundred miles before I need to top it up at all. I'm one that keeps it as high as possible without overfilling. This is mostly with freeway driving.

I've been into changing it about every 2800 miles. When I get like 1-2k miles on the oil though, it'll go from max-full to below the safe zone in around 200 miles. Thank Ford for a functional low-oil light.

The motor has lots of power and doesn't smoke, but I'm gonna blame most of its oil consumption on neglect by the previous owners, though I suppose it could be from bad valve guide seals. I understand that most oil-burn is going to be eaten up by the cat. It doesn't have any obvious leaks, and like I said, consumption increases with mileage on the oil. Anyway, is there anything easy that I can fix to cure this, like replacing the PCV or something? I don't think I've done that. Thanks guys.

 

[Rick]

Could very well be a combination of oil being sucked through a leaking intake manifold gasket (very common), bad valve seals and worn guides (common on high mileage motors), or oil getting past the rings (least common for the 4.0).

We have a cylinder head exchange around here. For a good price (just can't remember what it was) you get a rebuilt set of heads. At the same time you would be replacing your intake gaskets so you would kill two birds with one stone...

Good luck!

 

[Turdle]

Are you sure it isn't a leak.

Our Nissan (yeah I know, not an explorer) had an "oil consumption" issue.
At 83k I couldn't believe it was rings or valves--but no puddle---hmmmm.
Turns out is was the front main seal--and would only leak at high load-high rpm's. 10 bux for a seal, and a couple hours replacing, and no oil loss for life of oil now.

It never left a puddle--not a bit on the ground--but wouldn't go 150 miles without needing a quart---

 

[pugsy]

Try using better quality oil. Sometimes the cheapy stuff burns off faster then a higher grade oil would.

 

[F14CRAZY]

Intake manifold gasket eh? Reminds me...a couple seasons ago I had to replace a fuel injector O ring. Not much was going very well that day, so I said F it and used RTV instead of a real intake manifold gasket. I've heard of intake manifold gaskets being an issue but never really looked into those posts to see what was being talked about.

I predict Rick's next reply to be something along the lines of "that'll do it":

I suppose it could be a seal that only leaks at operating RPM too.

Thanks guys. I suppose I ought to pick up a gasket soon.

 

[Rick]

Yeah, a bad gasket will suck oil right into the intake ports. I was also burning oil very quickly with no smoke. This took care of the problem.

 

[F14CRAZY]

Thanks again. I'll get to replacing that soon. I've got ths service manual CD, so I've got the torque specs.

 

[EMG7895]

you have to do the valve cover gaskets while you are at it, and i'm sure they need to be done. After sitting for about 5 months mine got so bad you could watch the oil flow out from under them.

 

[F14CRAZY]

My bad! I forgot there's a "lower" intake manifold...I haven't messed with that gasket, which is probably my issue. The one I dealt with just connects the big aluminum thing that the throttle body is connected to. I didn't use RTV on the real intake manifold gasket :