Pulsar using a heap of oil

[Aussie Frontier]

Ok am after some words from the wise.
I bought my son a N16 Pulsar Q with the genII QG16DE engine. I should have known better but anyway. When I bought the car the guy told me the head had just been done because it overheated and blew a head gasket. Now in looking back I should have thought better of it as I wouldnt really know if they fixed everything .Well looks like they only did the head and didnt do anything else and it appears they really cooked the motor when they overheated it.The motor runs clean and doesnt drop any oil but its using about 1 litre per thousand kms.
Have been advised an easy fix is use thicker oil.
Realistic fix is new pistons rings and bearings but dont have that kind of coin at the moment.
Will running thicker oil actually do anything ?
New GEM engine is $5k, short rebuild is just shy of $3k .Can get new pistons rings etc from the US for about $500 delivered if the bores arent scored
Other than that its about $1k for an engine from a wrecker

thoughts?

 

[Malicious]

It may not need pistons, I'd be looking at pulling the head off and checking the bores may just be glazed and need a hone new rings and bearings , don't know the pricing these days but should only be a few hundred , measure the bearings and look at them you may not need to replace them if you are only keeping it short term

 

[Aussie Frontier]

Yeah I was hoping rings and bearings would be the go.It still goes well just drinks oil.just dont like the idea of the son driving it and forgetting to do the oil and blowing it completely.If it had real internal damage I would be thinking it wouldnt run too well at all.

 

[Malicious]

Sounds like oil rings stuffed and glazed up common from too much heat

 

[Aussie Frontier]

yeah am hoping thats all it is.I know it doesnt take much to screw up the oil scraper rings .Hopefully thats all it is .I would have thought any scoring would make it run like a bag of crap so maybe I might get lucky .I am pretty sure I have a deglazing stone and a hone in the shed.Hopefully they are able to fit in a small bore.

 

[Malicious]

Dump the oil and check for metal, set of rings should only be about $120 plus head gasket about $80 and $200 for bearings if needed , never done a pulsar but if you can get the sump off in the car good chance it could be done in there saving some time

 

[Aussie Frontier]

Yeah we used to do small block fords and holdens all the time and the odd straight 6 and that was just rings and bearings.
Might have to have a peek in the bores .

 

[jjohn]

How many klms on this engine?
Over 250 I'd get a wrecker replacement. Done in a day.

Oh def don't put heavier oil in.
Tolerance's to fine.

 

[Aussie Frontier]

The motor has done 130k

 

[Old.Tony]

Before taking the engine apart, I'd do a spot of cleaning first and then look at two things.

Clean the PCV hose. Being a petrol engine, this will be connected to the intake manifold so there's little point checking there unless you have an inspection camera (I have one, if you want to drive for 6 hours to borrow it then drive back).

Start the car with the PCV hose OFF and hold a tissue over the end of the hose to see how much gas is coming out of the hose. You shouldn't be getting oil, but if the rings/bores are stuffed you'll have a lot of blowby even at idle.

The other thing to look for is valve guide problems. Cooking the engine might have caused the valve guides to be damaged, which won't show as extra blowby but will show as blue smoke on takeoff after the car's been idling (eg at a set of traffic lights). Follow your son for a little and watch - if it starts blowing blue as the lights go green and it's good by the other side of the intersection, chances are it's the valve guides (although if they're really bad, it'll blow blue all the time).

 

[Aussie Frontier]

Hey Tony
I have looked and the outside of the motor is as clean as and there is zero blue smoke from the exhaust.I still have to do the breather check but I have run the motor and taken the oil cap off and didnt see any smoke. Will disconnect the breather today and see what it does.

 

[Aussie Frontier]

I have looked over the motor from top to bottom and no signs of any leaks and the engine bay is clean.No signs underneath so doesnt appear to be loosing anything from a weeping gasket .
No signs of blue smoke at any stage ,have checked numerous times at startup and when its been driving off.
Thats the weird part it just seems to be drinking the oil and no signs of where it goes. I will pop the breather line off today and see how much smoke it blows. The silly part is the sump is tiny and it only holds under 3liters of oil from full.
Not easy to check compressions as the plugs are buried in the head with the coils bolted directly on top.
Supposedly the head was all done but without seeing it myself who knows

 

[Old.Tony]

How's the radiator coolant looking? Any milkiness to it?

 

[Aussie Frontier]

Ok
No cream in the radiator
I disconnected the PCV line from the intake and capped the intake.Took off the line from the air box and capped that. Started the humungus 1800cc beasty and ........Nothing. there is oil in the breather lines but bugger all smoke.I shut down the beasty and opened the oil cap and only a hint of smoke.
I have seen more smoke from a gas fire.
ill admit its got me buggered.
Ill check it again after I have driven it for 30 minutes

 

[Malicious]

I reckon oil rings and glazed would be enough to burn a litre every thousand , had a Mazda b2600 which was doing it rings hone and bearings fixed the issue , fixed flogged it for more than it cost , guy still driving it around 7 years later

 

[mrtim123]

have some bad news for ya mate, i had the same thing in my 2003 n16.
by any chance is it the series 2 hatchback model? (this is the alloy top - not the black plastic rocker). reason i ask is the hatch is made in UK and the sedan in asia - the issue i struck only seems to occur in the uk made hatch. The diagnosis we ended up getting was that the bore actually goes porous and the oil just gets burned up. is it really smokey? mine was using 1-2 litres in 2 weeks, blowing it all out the back as smoke.

kinda like this?

i ended up getting a long motor from a series 2 sedan and bolting it in. Ran perfectly for another 2 years before the wife didn't notice the needle pointing to H one day....and kept driving till it stopped

i think the motor was $1500 exchange, but they decided they didnt want the old one so i scrapped it for a couple hundred.

hope that helps!

 

[Aussie Frontier]

Nah mine is the N16 sedan so made in Japan. Its got the QG18DE GenII with the alloy cover.From what I can tell there is zero smoke out the exhaust.Well I havent seen any yet.I have a catch can on order so when it gets here I'll build it up same as the unit in my D40 . Maybe that will give me some idea where the oil is going.