This lady has only 20K on the clock and suddenly started burning 3 litres of oil per 10 hour day. Changed the oil . I had a spare turbo so I put it on. Made no difference. Did valve seals and valve lash. No change. Removed engine vent pipe from air intake and checked blow by hot , cold , high idle and full load. No oil being blown out and blow down seems normal. Compression on starting is perfect . The engine is a Deutz 6 litre 6 cylinder water cooled unit with individual electronic controlled injection pumps . I can only assume the oil rings are stuck solid or broken even though this machine has only ever worked hard. Is there any oil additive and or fuel additive that might cure or ease the problem? How many hours are these engines good for ? It would be hard to justify a rebuild at the moment as this machine is now only working around 500 hours per year . Owned the machine from 2000 hrs and has always been serviced to schedule with good quality oil.
Did you recently change oil brands? Also, when you add oil, are you waiting for it to get all the way to add mark? Drinkin that much, first thing I'd look for would be a leak, but I'd think you'd have noticed that for sure.
I was using Total Rubia 7400 for the last number of years but changed to Elf this year. I am not sure if it ran on the elf oil or not. I got in a barrel of Total and changed the oil shortly after the problem started even though it was only over half way through the interval. I keep the oil level with in the max and min levels . It is never over filled. You can smell the exhaust far away . It stinks. It is burning 1.5 to 2 % of oil relative to fuel . In general anything above 0.5% which is an old Mercedes spec is not good. It has done another 200 hours of 500 since last serviced . I would change it again but am wondering about oil additaves before or when I change . I also tried adding 20% petrol (gasoline) to the fuel to make it run extra clean for a 10 hour day but did no good .
What I was mainly asking about level was do you wait until it is on the MIN mark to add oil? I have seen engines that will stay slightly above the minimum level, but if you keep them topped off, will use as much as you can give it. Also, I would not add gas to the fuel. This new fuel is dry enough as it us, all you're doing is tearing up the fuel system.
Thanks Shimmy1 for your input . I have never tried to run it on the min mark . Will do. I know what you mean about the fuel . It is bad enough as it is for lubricity as it is , I just thought it was worth a try . I usually add 5 Litres of engine oil into every 2500 litre fill of the storage tank for the past 2 years. Don't know if it helps or not , I still have increasing fuel system problems across the board. Mostly rotary pumps on auld yokes wearing away . Back to the L90E , If the oil rings were broken , surely they would be hacking into the liners over 500 hours and my compression would be down and blow bye increasing but they are not. If the rings are stuck , is there any additive to unstick them . Would it be crazy to pull the injectors and fill each cylinder with with gas and keep topping up for a week ?
Volvomad made a good point and reminded me of something I used to do a lot when I was an engine builder; measure the dipstick length and where the markings are. Now find another engine, same model and series. The markings should be the same. Or contact your dealer to get the measurements. This will eliminate some guess work for you.
You stated that you replaced the turbo charger with a spare one you had. What condition was it in ? New, used or rebuilt ?
It was a turbo I had removed from the same engine about three years ago . The engine was making a strange high pitched noise under certain load conditions so I replaced the turbo . It did not solve that problem and was burning no oil at the time . A spare turbo was no harm because at that stage it was on its fourth one . The oil consumption remained exactly the same before and after switching the turbo . I think it unlikely they would pass an identical amount of oil .I may be wrong .
Didn't tackle this one yet . Any fresh ideas before I go to rebuild ?
We just had to Volvo 120s with the Duetz engine start using a lot of engine oil. Had about 12000 hours of heavy use. the rings were shot in one, the second one the rings didn't look to bad but they still put liners in them. Once they were done there was a noticeable difference in cranking speed during start up indicating that our compression was low. One area to look for engine oil consumption might also be the rear main seal. Our 120's had a wet flywheel housing and the transmission oil looked dark and overfull on one of the machines.