What to do?

[firecadet613]

Put in a new rebuilt 4.3 v6 from ATK engines (www.atk-engines.com) about 6,000 miles ago. Engine was broke in properly, and is now burning oil. I'm down at least a quart in under 3k miles. The original motor never used a drop, even when I pushed my oil changes out to 6K miles a few times with Mobil 1. It's got a warranty on it so I'm calling them up later today, but any advice for me?

 

TIA

 

Joe

[k1500chevy97]

Id tell them to stick this engine up their ass and give you another

[firecadet613]

Thats what my plan is, you can't really fix an engine that burns a quart every 2000 miles give or take a few. Wasn't GM just replacing the oil burning 8.1's with new ones?

 

Joe

[firecadet613]

It's 3 months old as of today I just realized, installed on July 28th 2003, but I picked it up a few days after that. Put in at 105,703 miles, and is currently at 112,070 as of right now.

[firecadet613]

Well I pulled the intake manifold bolts yesterday one at a time and put some #2 permatex sealant on them, but alas problem still here...

 

UPDATE

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Still smoking, even worse so now. It was about 80 here in Denver yesterday, now its 30 degrees out and truck was covered with ice when I woke up. Fired it up and about 10 seconds later white smoke started coming out of the tailpipe. Theres some liquid dripping out of the tailpipe also. Is my intake manifold gasket bad? What could it be?

[firecadet613]

Coolant level appears to be ok, oil level down a little bit, no moisture on the inside of engine oil filler cap/neck.

 

Joe

 

I'm getting pissed

[firecadet613]

Coolant level appears to be ok, oil level down a little bit, no moisture on the inside of engine oil filler cap/neck.

 

Joe

 

I'm getting pissed

[k1500chevy97]

Give em hell joe .

You paid for an engine you should get a trouble free one

[firecadet613]

Well its down some oil again. Went down from the E in operate on the dipstick to the O in just over 500 miles, looks like I'm going to pull the intake on my next day off.

 

Joe

[sjspor]

Back to basics Joe, run a compression test and make sure you have the correct PVC valve. If you have one cylinder low, the rings may be set up wrong or bore is out of spec with the others.

 

Question.. why did you replace the first engine? 105,000 on a 4.3 is just a warm up.

 

Did the engine come complete, or just a short block, if you swapped heads, i'd start there.

[firecadet613]

PCV valve is the correct from Autozone. I've seen the threads about the 5.3 v8 PCV vavle issue, does this apply to my 4.3? Does that little oil usage in 500 miles or so sound about right to be the PCV valve? Replaced the previous engine because at 85k miles oil lines burst, warranty covered crank/main bearings replacement. Turns out they should have put a new engine in instead of just the crank kit. Engine let go at 105K miles on my drive out to Denver from IL. It was a complete with heads on it all ready, www.atk-engines.com Just transferred over manifolds, although the mechanics did a s**tty job. For the intake manifold bolts, I just removed and sealed up the ones inside the intake plenum, should I do that to all the intake manifold bolts or are just those fine? I never had any oil usage at all on the old motor, even when I did a few 5-6k oil change intervals.

 

Joe

[chevroletmb]

when they put the new engine in did they do anything with the oil cooler?

if the engine died i'm sure the oil cooler is full of god knows what

metal shavings ect. unless they replaced it with the engine might not be the cause but something to think about

[firecadet613]

Oil lines were an issue with the previous engine, non existant with this one. The previous engine failed due to a crank related failure, not the oil lines. Oil lines are not playing a part in this at all but thanks for the heads up.

 

Joe

[sjspor]

I don't think the intake is your problem, its time for a compression test.

 

If you were getting water in the oil, yeah.. go after the intake, I don't think there are any oil gallerys in the intake.

 

The reason I asked about the PCV valve is if its the wrong one, or stuck, you can pull

oil back into the intake. Pull the other end of the vaccum line the PCV is attached to and make sure its not full of oil.

 

If your using that much oil, you either have a valve stuck, and the truck would be missing anyway, or it's getting by the rings

[firecadet613]

Would it show up in a compression test though? A compression test tests the compression rings, and the oil consumption would have to do with the oil control rings. What I meant about the intake was the intake manifold bolts. The moron mechanics who installed my engine didn't put any sealant on them so the vacumn pressure was sucking up oil and going in the intake charge. I pulled them a few weeks ago and sealed them up, I will know on Saturday when I pull it again, if theirs oil inside there that's what it definatly is. Just trying to see what else I can/might have to do to it before I start.

 

Joe