Engine oil disappeared to nowhere overnight????

[aofarrell2]

1989 Ford in my sig, checked oil a couple days ago, put a little over 200 highway non-towing miles on it. Today Mom ran it into town, complained about a knocking noise whenever she would step on the gas. Visual inspection revealed nothing wrong with any moving parts, no codes set for engine misfire.

Checked engine oil, lost 1-2 qts in those few hundred miles, not by leaking either! There are absolutely no leaks in the system, it didn't blow any blue smoke, but then again it's got a cat, that stinks terrible today... on the tip of my dipstick were shiny metal shavings!!!

Seems the bearings shot, but what in the world would cause it to eat THAT MUCH OIL with no physical leaks??? Coolant has some oil in it, how much I have no clue...

Help!

I need to be able to tow with this truck, but DONT want to blow a bearing!

 

[argve]

well the oil had to go some where and you mention that it's got oil in the coolant so I would suspect that it's pushing the oil across into the cooling system. So until then I would not drive the truck. I would suspect the heads or head gasket.

 

[aofarrell2]

That's my suspicion too, main problem is that the engine was starved of oil, ran bearings out and undoubtedly other stuff too... Might be time for IDI swap...

I do also have the oil to coolant heat exchanger...

 

[aofarrell2]

Well talked with a friend who had a similar occurence other than that he caught it sooner...

And yes my coolant has oil in it... Coolant is dark brown/sooty, coolant reservoir has a bunch of oil clinging to the sides, I could take my finger and wipe it off.... Ugghhhh.

 

[argve]

sounds like you are pulling it for a repower or rebuild... either way she gonna have to come out.

 

[aofarrell2]

I guess so... I'm going to look for a cheap running 460 that I can drop in it easy, then I'll build this one up really nice, something like stroking and turbo'ing the old engine, should be really sweet then.

 

[argve]

Tons of things can be done to the 460 you can really hog out the bores some years (can't remember at the moment) then they will pass everything but a gas station. I know the early 460's you could bore and stroke to over 500 cubes.

 

[aofarrell2]

If I did that sort of stuff to a 460 I'd have it sonic checked to be sure it was okay. But I also have a opportunity to get my hands on a complete 1994 Powerstroke 7.3L with wiring and computers for $2500, has 110K on the engine and the guy said it runs strong. I trust this guy very well, he stands behind his work and makes a whole bunch of different specialty conversion "kits" and he knows what he is talking about too, so I'm really interested in that engine, it'd be alot cheaper to put upgraded injectors, programmer, and possibly turbo on the Powerstroke than to build the 460.

 

[887.3DirtyD]

Get what you think would be more financially suitable, but personally I would go powerstroke. Also sounds like a bad oil cooler..

 

[aofarrell2]

WELL I Finally solved the mystery of the disappearing engine oil. It was a bad catalytic converter, causing WAAAAAY too much backpressure.

In any case I think I will be pulling the 460 and doing a pretty much stock rebuild now.