alpha 1 buning oil after runing at idle for an hour

[Glastronsierra195]

Hi
I have a alpha 1 with a 5.7 i was out on the weekend and was idling around the harbour for about an hour. When I cleared the harbour and went to get up on plane there was a pile of blue smoke coming out(have through hull exhaust and not had a chance to put the y pipe in) it went away after about a minute but it ran fine it was not idling rough or lagging on accelaration. There were no issues on the 18 miles back to the launch either. It generally does not burn oil, last year over the season I added about a liter

From what I have read I would suspect the valve seals. I dont know how I would test for this before going ahead with this job?

I have also found just enough information to confuse me about the pcv valve and this could cause a problem similar to this.

Can anyone shed some light on the pcv valve for me or suggest a way to test the seald on the valves?

Thank you

 

[cr2k]

Re: alpha 1 buning oil after runing at idle for an hour

There is NO pcv valve. What you see that looks like one is just an open fitting for the blow by tubes. Valve seals will usually suck oil at high vac. Most notable is if you let off when going fast and hit it again it will blow a little smoke. A long idle may also load up the valve seals.

 

[Glastronsierra195]

Re: alpha 1 buning oil after runing at idle for an hour

so you would suspect valve seals as well?

Are they usally something that will fail on there own? Or symtamatic of larger problems?

 

[tpenfield]

Re: alpha 1 buning oil after runing at idle for an hour

Usually you can tell oil burning causes by seeing when the blue smoke comes and goes, as CR indicated. In this situation, based on your description, it sounds like rings may be the culprit, because you were accelerating. You might want to do some more testing of the situation to vefiy if the blue smoke occurs when accelerating versus backing off on the throttle.

It may be best to do a cylinder leak test to see if you are getting blow-by on any of the cylinders.