Missing oil... mabye pinging?

[flyguy]

Okay... Im losing oil pretty quick.. no noticeable leaks. My mechanic said that I might be losing it to a ping... well.. upon driving it around with the radio off for once... I think I might be pinging a little. What I want to know is why am I pinging! I use premium gas and all that... what else could I do? Before it was suspected that I might have a bad Throttle Position Sensor, could this be causeing all this? What are the possible culprits? Also, Ive gotten a large drop in milage. Anyways... anybody have and exp. checking these sensors so I dont blindly go replacing them?

nick

 

[rpenner54]

Sounds like a load of crap to me! If your losing oil that has nothing at all to do with pinging. At least last I checked. Pinging is caused by using high-octane gas and getting carbon buildup. The throttle position sensor (TPS) has nothing to do with oil either. It just tells your truck how fast it should be running. I would recomend finding a mechanic that knows his nose from his foot first if your getting that sort of advice. As far as oil goes, check your valve cover gaskets for oil. What can happen is these will leak and the oil will burn off on your manifolds. As far as the bad millage I would recomend getting one of those computers that you can read codes in from an auto store and see what codes come up. They will tell you if you have anything electronic going bad. Other then that I would say keep posting whats going on and hopefully others will help out also.

 

[flyguy]

I thought you could burn oil if your consistantly pinging? Oh well. Still doesnt explain where its going... and nope.. nothing visible on the engine.. yet... at least. Anyways...I thought the TPS could be the cause of my pinging... being that Im getting low milage as well.. maybe my air/fuel is way off? Hmmm...

 

[flyguy]

Hey ya... just forgot to mention... the only code I have pulled from the code reader is something about the EGR valve whichI already replaced... I then was told that there is a regulator too... but Im not in a hurry to replace that.

nick

 

[SteveVB]

Again?

I thought you just took your truck in to fix this. Do a search, could be the TPS, MAF, EGR valve, FPR, plugs, wires, the carbon build up from a leaky intake gasket...
Start checking them one by one.

TPS, and MAF you can check with volt meter- specs are in most manuals. Intake check the vacuum or spray some carb cleaner around the sealing surfaces.

One other thing- if everything checks out, it could be that the computer learned a specific driving style, and engine parameters and one or both changed. If I drive on the Hway for a while to get to a trail and then get on the trail and am going slow- the engine will ping and knock for a while as the computer adjusts- takes a while going slow though. Also when I hit the highway on the way home the engine seems sluggish since the situation has changed dramaticlally again (from 0-5mph) to 65-70mph) Something to think about

Good luck

 

[flyguy]

Well..I thought it was the TPS before.. and havent gotten the cash together to replace it... and now that more problems are springing up..I thought Id get more opinions.. okay... there had been a twist... before... I was losing oil.... and yesterday I got a "check oil" light... so I just assumed I was losing oil again.. not the case. Im Full... so I just got a phantom "check oil" light. But it still sucks. I have the mild ping (either that or somethings clanging about in there), really bad milage, and an occasional stall. Im going to get the olm/voltometer thing today and start testing sensors... when I look for carbon build up... is that between the upper and lower intakes? I guess Ill have to order a new gasket then. How long would it take to get a build up of carbon? Becuase everything was cleaned out when I did my head swap a while back.

Sigh.

nick

 

[sohowcome]

hmm

Maybe some axle grease would work??

 

[blk mk8]

if you are loosing oil in to your intake track this could cause pinging. all so if the tps is way off this could all so cause pinging. check out the tps and find where the oil is going.

 

[flyguy]

Okay... as far as I can tell I havent lost any more oil (sense last time I had it fixed) so Im retracting my claim of lost oil... although I did get the Check Oil light... coulda been a fluke. Anyways. As far as milage, and stalls go... I checked both my IAC and TPS and they checked out fine. Im not sure what the TPS was supposed to read, but I got about 3.5 olms closed and it went down to about .5 olms or something at WOT. But it was pretty steady in doing so. So.. any more ideas? The only thing I found was my fitting between my intake tube and Throttle body was cracked... so some air was leaking under the TB. Could that have caused the problems I have been experienceing. Seems like a small hole for such big problems. but Im going to get it fixed. Any ideas of a better connection? I currently have a 3 inch PVC pipe...with a 3 inch "cap" on the end... with a hole cut out of the cap to fit snugly over the TB... if you can visualize that. And what broke was the cap. I was thinking about getting one of those rubber Furnco fittings and seeing if I could adapt that somehow. Hmmm... these ghetto intake tubes are hard work.

nick

 

[blk mk8]

your tps should read in volts at round .80 to .90 but not above 1. until you open it up. at wide open it should be at around 4.99 . tps volts change from car to car so check it agian and fixs the air leeks.

 

[Clint]

when my tps took a crap the check engine light went on and it would only have the pinging past like 2000 rpm's and the gas mileage sucked to just thought i would tell u what happened to mine

 

[flyguy]

Okay...heres what I didnt understand... when testing the volts... is that the wire harness that Im testing? Or the TPS itself? I didnt get the directions... hmmm..

nick

 

[TDG]

Just saw this thead when I was looking for you most recent one.

When my TPS started going out it generated a lot of fault codes, mostly "TPS not at expected position" when I was too lazy to fix it and it broke, my transmission didnt shift properly. (Auto)

I have found that synthetic oils seem to burn off quicker in high mileage engines probably due to their light weight and the looser clearances in the engine. My 92 was going through a quart of synthetic every 1500 miles when I switched back to whatever the factory recommended (I think it's 10/30 or 10/40) it stopped burning oil and I now dont add any oil between changes.

If you are vaporizing a lot of oil in the engine and it's making its way to the intake manifold it will lean out the mixture and cause pinging, I think this also applies if you are pulling too much oil through the valve guides.

 

[Xplor]

Rpenner54, Can using high octane really cause pinging? I never think it could. The pinging only occurs in high stress...warm outside and going over hills around 65- 70mph. That the only reason am using premium now. I have no mods except for the KKM and using Mobil 1. So should I try using a gas treatment along filling it up back with regular? I just bought Chervon fuel system cleaner. Think it will help?