Oil burning continues....

Hey everyone,

Despite several attempts to stymy the loss of oil in my 2000 Windstar, it's still burning oil at a pretty substantial rate. I would say that I burn through perhaps 3 quarts of oil per 3000 miles. I have to add oil in between oil changes and I've had to replace my spark plugs twice in the last year. I've replaced the valve stem seals thinking that the oil was dropping down the valve stems...didn't fix it. I've replaced the PCV valve with an aftermarket...didn't fix it. Replaced it with OEM...didn't fix it.

So yesterday, I pulled off the intake manifold (because the car's been bucking like hell and I'm sure the plugs are fouled again) to take a look at it. The intake had PLENTY of oil in it. If you look back toward the butterfly valve, it was nice and oily. That only reinforces the fact that the oil is entering the combustion chamber through the intake via the PCV system.

I'm considering installing a PCV catch can system and wondered if anyone has one installed on their Windstar and if so, how does it work?

I'm interested in any advice you guys might have on this problem.

Mark

I would just remove the PVC valve and just leave the hoses loose, PVC and crankcase fresh air, .... and see if it runs better and what comes out the hose ends. ??

I wonder if something is causing the crankcase to go "high pressure" ... excessive ring bypass, or whatever.

I don't like the idea of a catch-vessel. I'd rather fix what's broken, if possible.

Did you ever make a compression test?

Mark I'm gonna agree with 12ounce on this. I did install a catch can which I made myself. It's a shot-glass sized water separator made by campbell-hausfield for use on air lines in a compressed air setup. It literally will hold about 1.5 oz when full. Anyway, during cold weather it'll accumulate about an ounce of yellowy sludge which I dump out when I do oil changes. It wouldn't hold nor need to the amount of oil you're burning. I think you need to figure out why it's drawing oil up. Could the supply side of the motor's air be somewhat clogged causing vacuum problems? Also, maybe sending a sample of oil before you top it up to Blackstone might shed some light.

Just a brief update...

I plugged a vacuum gauge onto the motor and saw a surprisingly good result. The vacuum at idle was a solid 19 inches of hg. It wasn't bouncing around or anything. I was going to run a compression tester, but the one I got from Autozone are the kind that the hose spins on the threaded part and makes it hell to screw into the hole. I epoxied the two together and will attempt to run compression tests when I get home. I removed the front three spark plugs and they actually looked great. They've been installed for about 2 months. I'm going to remove the back three and see what they look like.

I'll keep everyone posted on the results.

Mark

Ok,

So I've spent the entire day working on this car and I'm no closer to figuring out whats wrong.

I removed the spark plugs, they all looked good. They were not crusted over. I ran a compression test. Cylinders 1,2,3,5,6 were 150psi. Cylinder 4 (front bank, passenger side cylinder) had 130 psi. While it was lower, I believe it's still well within tolerance.

The car still bucks pretty substantially when you are driving it. I noticed that the spark plugs were incorrectly gapped. (Autozone told me the wrong value) I had them at .044 and the recommended is .053-.056. I regapped and still bucking.

I replaced the ignition coil with one from a wrecked car...still bucking. I individually removed spark plug wires and got a noticeable change in engine running from each cylinder. I then popped individual fuel injector connectors off and also got noticeable running change from each one. This leads me to believe that I don't have any dead cylinders or clogged fuel injectors.

An interesting sidenote is that with this amount of bucking, I'm getting absolutely no check engine light.

One final note... I cleaned the egr ports in the intake manifold out. They were semi clogged. (Each port was about 35% blocked) Still bucking.

It seems to buck under light to medium acceleration once you are in the higher gears.

Hopefully you guys have some more suggestions of things I should try.

Mark

Let's go on the assumption that cyl #4 is not contributing its share. To test this assumption: remove its spark cable and go for a test drive. ?? Any change?

OOPPS!! (Edit) I now read you have already done the above.

Disconnect injector. Any change?

just for future reference in search engines:

The car still bucks pretty substantially when you are driving it. I noticed that the spark plugs were incorrectly gapped. (Autozone told me the wrong value) I had them at .044 and the recommended is .053-.056. I regapped and still bucking.


yea, another thing that autozone has it incorrect in their databases...

the .044" gap is for the 3.0L engines

so I'm assuming that you have the 3.8L engine (~.054" gap)

--------------------

wow, all that work and still no conclusion
:bricks1:

maybe it's slightly related to the following?

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1044065

http://leckemby.net/windstar/windstar01.html

PS: why did they have a revised part for that valve cover as stated in the TSB links?

Let's go on the assumption that cyl #4 is not contributing its share. To test this assumption: remove its spark cable and go for a test drive. ?? Any change?

OOPPS!! (Edit) I now read you have already done the above.

Disconnect injector. Any change?

12oz,

Yeah, I've done that too. With the same results. After posting this, I went and changed the MAF sensor with one from a wrecked Windstar. Same thing.

Tomorrow, I'm going to hit it early and try plugging ALL of the vacuum ports on the intake manifold. I occasionally will get lean codes, but they are very random. I'll get one, clear it and it might not come back for 3 months. I know that lean conditions can cause pinging/bucking, but this is pretty substantial and no OBD codes.

I've tried just pressing the brake and slowly pressing the accelerator to test if it was the tranny causing it. It misses when I'm doing this too. Not constant miss like a bad cylinder. It might run great for 3 seconds, briefly miss, and then run great for 5 or 6 seconds before missing.

I really expected to see damning results in my compression test, but I couldn't be happier. The car has 187,000 miles on it and the compression is still great. Having said that...I need to track down this miss and correct it.

If the Windstar finally beats me down, I have a cousin who is married to a head mechanic at a shop and he can hook one of the fancy diag machines to the windstar and see if he sees anything. The "man" in me absolutely HATES taking my car to someone else to troubleshoot, but the OBD code readers that regular people have just don't get deep enough. I really wish I had one of those nice ones that reads ABS and airbag codes. One day.....

Mark

....I've tried just pressing the brake and slowly pressing the accelerator to test if it was the tranny causing it. It misses when I'm doing this too. Not constant miss like a bad cylinder. It might run great for 3 seconds, briefly miss, and then run great for 5 or 6 seconds before missing......

I wonder if there is a huge air leak in the brake booster? Try a (carefull !!) test drive with the booster hose removed and plugged.

just for future reference in search engines:



yea, another thing that autozone has it incorrect in their databases...

the .044" gap is for the 3.0L engines

so I'm assuming that you have the 3.8L engine (~.054" gap)

--------------------

wow, all that work and still no conclusion
:bricks1:

maybe it's slightly related to the following?

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1044065

http://leckemby.net/windstar/windstar01.html

PS: why did they have a revised part for that valve cover as stated in the TSB links?


The veci for my engine, which is vulcan 3.0 v6 windstar 2000 is .52-.56 The wrong gapping still would not account for that at all.

Ok,

So after swapping out pretty much every sensor (except O2) that could possibly account for the bucking, I found/fixed the problem today. I feel stupid even typing this, but it turned out to be bad spark plug wires. I'd pulled the plugs out, looked at them, they were fine, but never considered the wires because every time I've ever had bad wires, it causes the ECM to flash a misfire. I was having no MIL light at all, so I hadn't considered the wires.

The wires that were in there looked great, and the ones that I put in there didn't look fantastic, but they were free and thus beautiful. I drove it around, buck free today. The only other thing I had to do to it was to replace the quick disconnect on the heater core hose where it connects to the engine. It had a leak that only dripped when you revved the engine. You could watch it for minutes at idle and never drip. You rev it manually and it would start dripping. In troubleshooting, I found quite a bit of antifreeze in pockets on the tranny case and other spots. The quick disconnect rebuild parts were $35 from Ford. While that was certainly higher than a cat's back for what you're getting, the entire hose assy. was $178. I literally laughed out loud to the parts guy at Ford. I'm cheap. I'll wear a coat in the car before I'll pay $178 for a heater core hose. :)

I didn't make any headway on the oil consumption issue, but I do have the parts to make the PCV catch can. I'm going to monitor it for a few weeks and if I start to see consumption, I'll install it and extend my monitoring a little longer.

Anyway, I'm glad I finally got the Windstar running. It's at 187,000 miles. If I can get it to last until January/February of next year, I'd consider it a huge victory and consider buying the wife something that the paint isn't peeling off of. :)

Mark

Sidenote: My brother had 2003 Windstar and his Father-In-Law had a 1999 Windstar and the motor seized up in due to overheating (daughter was driving and didn't heed the warnings). Anyway, after it seized, he was going to have a junkyard come tow it away for $200. My brother asked me if I was interested in splitting the cost and getting the remnants for a parts car. I was EXTREMELY hesitant because I didn't think I'd need enough parts off it to make it worth my time and effort. To date, I've salvaged the Wiper Cowl assy, the alternator, the intake manifold, the coil, plug wires, a/c hose assy, PCM (although useless without reprogramming), ABS module, MAF sensor, and TPS sensor. All in all, I consider it some of the best money I've ever spent. When I'm done with it...I'll be able to haul to a scrapyard and still get $200 on it. :)

Hey everyone,

I finally solved the dreaded oil consumption issue, but it was not direct.

I went out a few months ago to start the van and it wouldn't start. The engine didn't even rotate. I had my wife crank it while I watched and the crankshaft was definitely attempting to crank which told me the starter was engaging. (this was NOT a good sign)

I told her that the engine appeared to be seized up and that I'd try removing the spark plugs to see if it would rotate. The front 3 didn't change the symptoms, but when I got back to the rear bank, the plug closest to the driver was full of fluid. I pulled everything apart and the head gasket had blown and filled that cylinder with water (which won't compress...hence the lack of rotation)

After replacing the head gasket and reassembling it, I've driven over 6000 miles and don't lose a drop of oil anymore. So while I didn't intend to fix the oil leak, I did by fixing the head gasket.

Mark

P.S. In the interest of full disclosure, I purchased a head gasket kit that comes with almost every gasket you'd need. Additionally, I purchased new valve stem seals because I'd have the heads off and it was easy to replace them. It is possible that the rear valve stems solved the problem because I'd replaced the front ones about a year ago with no change in oil consumption. Whether it was the valve stem seals or the head gasket that fixed the problem, we'll never know, but the bottom line is that I'm now squeaking another year out of the Windstar. :)

Mark, I am REALLY happy to see that you have solved the issue!!!!
Great Job!
Take it 1 year at a time.
I take a vehicle 1 year at a time.
The only reason I changed from my '96 Windstar to the 2003 Sienna is because my parents......older and living over 500 miles away were worried about me riding around in "such an old vehicle with so many miles on it".
I bought their "old" Sienna from them (at market "trade-in value") when they bought a new Sienna.
Otherwise.....there is no doubt in my mind that I would STILL be riding around in the same minivan.
My '96 is still going strong.......just a different owner.
While Toyota has a great reputation.....and they DO make great vehicles....there ARE things about the Windstar that I don't have with the Sienna.......like stainless steel exhaust.......and a few other things.

Reading through the posts in this thread......I would not have thought of the head gasket.....
This is not something that you should need to do again.....also, at this point, you should have the improved lower intake manifold gaskets....which ARE a weak point with the 3.8L.....as well as a LOT of other engines from various manufacturers.