Fouled spark plug on 92 Geo Metro 1.0

[nonewcars]

Proud single owner of 92 Geo Metro. Had Burnt valve on cylinder 1 at 147k miles. Resurfaced head and new values about 1 year ago and car ran great. Car however uses about 1 quart of oil per week. Now at 162k miles, within 2 weeks, I have fouled out the spark plug on cylinder 1 twice. Is it time to just buck up and replace the motor? Would there be any other cause such as clogged EGR or PCV valve that may be causing this? The cars a keeped either way. I was getting 52 mpg. Any suggestons appreciated.

[Crvett69]

usually when you redo the head you should replace the rings too. look inside air cleaner for oil. replace pcv valve and make sure hose from it is not plugged. replacement jdm motor will run you $350-450 depending where you get it

[nonewcars]

Can you replace the rings without removing the motor? I have heard you can drop the oil pan and get to the piston from the bottom.

[Crvett69]

you have to pull the head and pan off and after you home cyl walls make sure you clean everything real good. will cost about same for rings bearings, gaskets and new head bolts as for new motor

[nonewcars]

One more twist. I pulled out the spark plug on the #1 cyclinder. It has oil on it so i know I am getting blow by on that cylinder. I cleaned the plug off and reinstalled. Started the car and it runs about the same with a very slight miss. I can tell this from the tailpipe. Not to noticeable just listening to engine. I also re-adjusted the idle speed to idle a little faster. I turned the distributor back ever so slightly to get a little more pep as well. I have driven the car for a few days to work and back (about 90 miles round trip). Seems to run okay. However, when i turn on the AC, the ac blows cold, but the car runs very bad at low speeds and has quite a bit less power at higher speeds. I can't idle the car with the AC on without riding the accelerator. I had the AC serviced about 1 month ago to add about 1/2 pound of r12 refrigerant. So, does the AC have any effect on the vacum system? I have chosen to just not use the AC for now, but its smoking hot in Texas right now. Any advice appreciated.

[Crvett69]

has no affect on vacuum directly but if your only running on 2 cyl it will lug the engine down when you turn it on. i would run a compression test on the motor and see what it is

[nonewcars]

I located a compression test kit for $20 - $30 at autozone. Do you just install the lead like you would the spark plug and crank the motor? Do you need to disconnect anything like the coil wire? I am assuming you just need the motor to crank over so the guage can read the compression.

[idmetro]

As you say connect the lead like you would a spark plug, I'd suggest pulling the other plugs just label things so you will know where they go back to. Also test the compression with the throttle wide open and the coil disconnected (no fires needed or desired...) Once you have tested each cylinder "dry" (as they sit) then go back and test each cylinder after squirting a teaspoon of oil in it ("wet") The dry reading will tell you how worn things are in general (how close to the factory spec are you) and the difference between the dry and wet readings will be an indication of how worn your rings are. A small difference is normal the larger the difference the poorer the seal between the rings and the wall of the cylinder. Here's a link to an even better explanation on the teamswift board http://www.teamswift.net/viewtopic.php?t=24601

[nonewcars]

Well I have determined the motor has good compression. Actually had a very high compression reading on cyl 1 on the wet test. Here are my compression readings:

Dry Cyl 1 - 185 Wet 250?? Don't know why the wet test was so high
Dry Cyl 2 - 190 Wet 215
Dry Cyl 3 - 200 Wet 220

I may have squirted too much oil in the cylinder on the wet test as when I cranked the car back up, it blew white smoke for about a minute.

So I believe my compression is just fine. Secondly, I discovered I had the distributor advanced too far. In the Haynes manual it says a possible reason for fouled spark plug is the distributor being advanced too far. After readjusting the advance back to a more slower engine, idle and driving the car for a week, I got 52 mpg (423 miles om 8.0 gallons of gas). I did not get anymore engine missing or stalling when idleing.

So I am back to my remaining problem of why does this engine loose so much oil. I can see where oil is blown on the valve cover, on the transaxle below the distributor, and below the intake on a device called the VSV. Its a little black round looking device that has an electical plug in. I know its part of the EGR system. I also replace the o ring in the distrubutor several months ago, but I still get oil dripping from below the distrbutor.

I have a theory that my EGR valve may be plugged, so what the heck, I am going to replace the egr, egr solenoid, and vsv and see what happens.

Does anyone know if the EGR system was plugged up or not working correctly if this would cause the engine to loose oil? I have 163K miles on the motor so it can't hurt to replace those componets.

[idmetro]

nonewcars;
Compression numbers look good, I believe new is ~200 per cylinder. Have you changed your PCV valve? I just acquired a 94 metro that "was using a lot of oil" when I checked on the PCV valve the center was gone essentially an open vacuum line into the crankcase. After replacement the car ran much smoother and hopefully this will also reduce the oil usage.

[nonewcars]

I have replaced the pcv valve (last week). I removed the egr and vsv valve and cleaned those as well. The egr was not clogged shut, but had a ton of carbon build up. I Cleaned it up nicely. I also replaced the vacum lines connecting to the EGR. I also replaced the distributor as someone on the posts said it could be leaking there and I did have oil inside the distibutor cap. Bummer is the car is still drinking oil. As I stated before, the car is not smoking. Comming home the other night from work, the car started missing some especially when going up an incline. I stopped by the parts store and went ahead and replaced the spark plugs again. I have not got the missing going on anymore, but do get a reduction in power when going uphill. I bought some engine cleaner and will clean the engine thouroughy to see if the engine is blowing the oil out somewhere. There are no dripping leaks under the car when running or when reving the engine while in neutral. No drips under the car when I get to work or home. This one has me stumped. Where is the oil going? can the car be burning this without it smoking? 1 quart per day (90 mile round trip) is outrageous.

[nonewcars]

Well I just went ahead and cleanup up the engine best i could. The engine is not leaking any oil, but is getting some oil in the breather. However after close inspection, I found a vacum line disconnected. Its was located toward the right top of the breather underneath about 1:00 oclock. The line is connected into some type of long roundish device. Must be a filter of some type. Plugging this back in and cleaning the spark plugs again have made the car run much better, but you guessed it, still drinking oil. I believe since the plugs are fouling so quickly, the blow by must be more than the pcv valve can handle and it is just sending the blow by on up into the breather. at this point I can look at the envalve device, make an oil catch like I've seen on this forum, or just go ahead and rebuild the motor. The car just runs to good to seem like I need to do all this, but the $2 per quart per day is starting to negate the 50 miles per gallon of gas savings.

[RossT]

I am kind of in the same boat with my 93. Car runs very well but uses alot of oil, but my spark plugs don't fowl. On the highway going about 70mph the automatic winds up so much and drinks about 1 quart per 250 miles. Around town its alot better, about 1 quart per 750 miles. On this forum www.bobistheoilguy.com they will tell you to use a thicker oil. I may tray this, but with winter coming, starting may be an issue. I hate to replace the engine with a jdm (have done this on another car) when its running so good. I also have a little piston slap on cold morning, but have heard this is normal for our cars. I may try a heaver oil such as 0w40 been using 5w30.

[DanMan7]

Anyone know where to get a new VSV? Been looking for one but have been unable to find one. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Dan

[nonewcars]

Been a while on this thread. I tried to contact the company that makes the envalve pcv valve replacement. No luck. After fouling several more plugs, I bought some bosch spark plugs and for three weeks, the sppark plugs have not fouled. However, I'm now using a quart of oil per trip. I drive 90 miles round trip Monday thru Friday. So what I have done is buy some engine cleaner and cleaned the motor up. After I drive the car for a few days, I will check and see if I see oil blowing out. The engine was so dirty, it was hard to tell before. Here is a picture of the engine now. I'll post another picture in a few days.



I hope I did this right. If the image does not show, I'll try again.