Oil in Air cleaner?

[nightowl]

Have a 1988 Ford Ranger pickup truck, 2 wd, 5 spd manual with a 2.0L, 4cyl engine. Would like to know what this means? Could it be valve seals, oil rings? I have also had a tad of blue out the exaust once in a blue moon. So it sounds like the oil rings are going and some cylinder walls are getting glazed.

Have 132,000 kms on engine so far. Will do a compression test and hope this tells all. It could be a big job and not worth the problem. Seems to be coming from the oil filler cap, and vent tube to air filter. changed the pcv, new plugs.

Any help is a appreciated

 

[Mark_88]

Common problem...

This is usually caused by blow-by...a not good thing...but the engine can last for several years with a few changes.

The oil smoke puff is probably due to oil being sucked through the PCV into the combustion and you can actually eliminate that by simply routing the hose to a catch can.

If the oil pressure is severe you could loose all your oil through various and assorted openings in the engine...it will come out through the valve cover, the distributor, the canister under the intake, and even blow out your dipstick.

The key to stopping that is to vent the pressure. The oil catch can works to a limited degree.

The best solution is to have the engine rebuilt or put in something else with less problems (hopefully). I posted an oil catch can article that helped a bit on my truck and others have put in other options like an oil separator that I've incorporated. This actually reduced the blue smoke quite a bit...unfortunately, it did not completely stop the oil loss that can cause severe engine damage or failure.

It could be valve seals causing some of your problem, but most likely rings oil or compression rings. Try the compression test and post the results (and leak down test). If your compression is good then it might not be too bad at this point.