After pouring in the daily cup of oil onto the valves, the engine blows blue smoke for about eight hours.
My question is.....is it normal that the engine head needs three cups of oil in 24 hours?
It has about 300 hours nonstop run, and the crankcase oil consumption is only about one cup in 100 hrs.
Oiler
It's probably just givin' you work after looking over your shoulder when you were posting on this forum OILER ;)
Seriously though, oil must be leaking past the valve stems somehow and into the combustion chamber, I cannot think of any other explanation ???
Excessive wear of the valve guides can occur quickly if rockers are not aligned correctly exec.
dubbleUJay
PS- Sorry for that 1st comment, but it seemed funny when I thought about it ::)
I've got no idea why me and Jens post at exactly the same time, but he's probably right! Jens, would so much oil go that quickly down the guides?
Well. Peraps i do use too much oil, i'll try giving it a squirt mornings and evenings.
Perhaps it is the lube oil that is the reason, i need sweeping my exhaust exchanger every four days ;)
Oiler
Oiler, you should try to keep the level in the 2 oil wells so that the top of the valve-guide is just visible, picture attached.
Any oil higher than that will go down the guide.
dubbleUJay
Two comments....
1] Worn valve guides or improper clearances ??
2] How about lubing the upper end with a thicker oil. Say straight 40w or something like that? It might not disappear so fast.
Veggie
The valves and guides are Rajkot tolerances- I use 90wt, and not much of it. Same for the rocker and caps.
I use chainsaw bar and chain oil and the tackifyer really keeps it stuck to the rockers and valve caps. Even after a week you can see a film sucked between things. For some reason the oil pockets in the head will not hold oil up to the level of the top of the guide as I have seen in some drawings. Are some of the guides drilled latterally for oiling as is done on the cam follower bodies?
Thanks for the chainsaw oil tip, Frank. I never would have thought of it.
Remember that honey like stuff that was almost pure lubricant without the hassle of liquid? I'm talking about STP oil treatment. It does a marvelous job of creeping into places as a anti-sieze. Perhaps it would be an ideal lube for the Lister top end valve gear.
Quote from: BruceM on November 17, 2009, 10:02:02 AM
Thanks for the chainsaw oil tip, Frank. I never would have thought of it.
Ditto!
I've seen some were on a commercial site that they recommend using Mobil 1 grease because of the oil getting used up ??? Not to sure about that though ,think it was OldStyleListers?
Found it, they changed their website:
http://www.wcaeaps.com/lubrication.html
Sounds interesting though that source is highly suspect.
I wonder if grease would also take care of the valve caps, reducing that service interval. My rocker arm is oiled, no grease cap. Bummer.
dubbleUJay, thanks for posting that website. It has some interesting info in various categories.
One suggestion made on the site was to replace the rocker shaft grease cup with a grease nipple and service a bit less often with Mobil 1 synthetic grease. Anyone screw an auto-greaser into this spot for 24/7 service? There were many other interesting tidbits of info there.
Veggie
Yes Veggie, there's a lot to read/see on that site and I was particular interested in the mods they did to the engine head a while back. They use to be OSL and I read the stuff a long time ago.
Jens, one thing that happened to me a while back. I've got an original Lister, but my whole rocker arm assembly was worn, so I purchased a new "clone"one.
It had the grease cup, but I noticed it did not work, so on inspection I found that they forgot to drill the holes in the shaft by each rocker bush! I also fixed the alignment of the rockers to the valve caps with some spacer washers as they were way out to one side.
Every now and then I just give the cup a 1/4 turn. The grease does peel out in between the rockers and the shaft now. I tend to oil them anyway when I oil the rockers exec.
This is the problem the Clone Manufacturers have with the practice of "stealing with one's eyes" :o
You cannot see whats inside! ;)
Quote from: Crofter on November 17, 2009, 10:00:12 AM
I use chainsaw bar and chain oil and the tackifyer really keeps it stuck to the rockers and valve caps. Even after a week you can see a film sucked between things. For some reason the oil pockets in the head will not hold oil up to the level of the top of the guide as I have seen in some drawings. Are some of the guides drilled latterally for oiling as is done on the cam follower bodies?
Thanks for the tip reg. chainsaw oil, i'll try it right away.
Reg. drilled guides i've seen a drawing somewhere, can't find it now though, it showed the drilled guides.
So i guess yours might have the holes, since your oil is disappering too fast.
Oiler
Since I switched to 90wt oiling of the rockers and caps, I never add oil to the valves, in fact I have to remove excess oil on occasion.
For anyone who is interested, the owner of the OSL site used to be a member of the old LEF. he was banned from there for making eronious claims about his engines (100,000 hour run times or more even though he had only sold them for a few years) he also had several user accounts on the forum & would have discussions with himself about how great his engines are. you may wish to take anything he says with a grain of salt.
SR
Thanks lowspeedlife, didn't know that!
I must say that some of the modifications I've seen on the "original" site was quite interesting though and the explanations givin' for some wasn't all to far fetched, but I wont take anything for granted now! ;)
Bit off topic, but getting a lot of oil leaking around the tappet collets, kinda don't want to mess with them cuz got the little buggers spinnin' like four whirling dirvishes - but sick of the mess. Think I remember it was Xyzer (if not appologies) machined some heavy duty hold-downs. Would replacing the stamped steel crappy ones withbetter hold-downs do the trick or do I need to pull the collets and install new gaskets - or maybe machine o-ring grooves?
Any and all ideas greatly appreciated.
Cheers Fred
Capt Fred, maybe your vacuum breather ain't working as it should? I also have no gaskets on mine. (Dursley)
Yes i would definitely check the vacuum, mine are really sloppy but look so dry that i on occasion give them a squirt of oil that soon gets sucked away.
Potter
That's kinda what I thought, I've taken the breather apart and cleaned the component - but has not had any effect, pressure is normal on the gauge but lots of weeping oil on the deck.
That being said, something is amiss, will have to dig a bit deeper and find the problem. Thanks, I really want to find the problem, not treat the symptoms.
Cheers, Fred
Maybe its "normal" then because of sloppy tolerances on the 2 cylinder 'roids?
A smallish diameter pipe taken from between your air-filter and head intake to the crankcase should give it some vacuum like on a petrol engine to boost the brakes (not at the same -pressures though), but like you said, don't treat the symptoms!
If someone decides to try it, for obvious reasons, PLEASE, above the oil level, preferably at the existing breather somewhere! ;D
That said, even the Dursley Lister's had a vacuum in the crank case for oil slobber, so it was/is a problem, how much oil will come out without it I don't know, mine have no oil leaks anywhere. ;)
dubbleUJay
On a twin, if you are still using the thin metal reed valve plate, that could actually be trapping pressure in the engine placed there by blowby gasses. This little bit of blowby is leaking out thru every small hole and pushing oil with it. Because of all the holes, it never builds enough pressure to lift that breather reed valve and vent the gasses that way. Ideally, the twins would have a divider plate between the halv's and an individual flapper type breather on each crankcase half. Since the twins don't have this internal divider between the crankcase halvs, they really don't get any vacume action from piston travel like the singles do with the oneway crankcase breather.
I would ditch the top half of that stock breather and make a flat plate with a hose fitting in it, run up to the intake manifold. This will put a little negative pressure on the case, and hopefully cut down on the weeping oil. Failing that, again remove the top plate on that stock breather and just put on a big filter, so the case is as near to atmospheric pressure as possible...
I replaced the upper half of my crankcase exhaust vent with a plate and a 1' NPT fitting welded on. this was real easy to do... This allows me to screw on a brass check valve with the spring removed(gravity holds it closed). The top of the checkvalve has a threaded output so I can tassily add a hose/pipe to vent the gasses outside, or into the intake, or into the exhaust. I havn't vented it anywhere yet, it just has a sock tied to it to collect the oil mist as I wanted to see just how much oil gets carried out that way...
I like that, think I'll go with the modified checkvalve and vent outside.
Thanks, Fred
On my 6/1 I also use Ron's setup; modified brass check valve, mine's plumbed through an outside wall. I think I stole the idea from Ron, it was another of his many good ones.
Interesting to learn about the weak vacuum in the twins.
Jens, is your added vacuum breather a crankcase connection to the intake manifold?
Nice work, Jens. Do you have a photo of your successful venturi?
The thickest portion of the venturi is only about 1/4"
Huh? From the other part it sounds like it fills the entire intake, but surely it doesn't taper to 1/4" at the waist of the venturi.
I must be losing it. I could'a swore I posted a public service informational post about venturi here when I last logged in. ???