valve guides?

[Black dawg]

how many miles till the valve guides should be looked at?

 

[87crewdually]

It's hard to put milage on guides but if you have the milage in your sig and your oil consumption is up, you can easily check the guides for excessive play without removing the head.

 

[Black dawg]

you were supposed to tell me 300k and how did you know my oil consumption was up.

 

[HammerDown]

Oil consumption isn't only caused by "bad valve guides". It could also be from ring blow-by and that round thing CRT maybe? located at the rear of the intake.

I pulled my valve covers @ 189,000 miles. With the valve 'closed' got a good hold on each spring/valve at the retainer and tried to move it. A bad guide will let the valve move/rock. > and if the valve moves of course the valve guide seal can't do its job.
Smoke on start up on a gasser is a sure indication oil is getting past the guide and into the combustion chamber. Always smoking could be blow-by at the rings and smoking during deceleration is also oil being sucked through the guide into the combustion chamber.
Of course...with our "oil burners" the above is a little more difficult to diagnosis visually > a cylinder leak-down test can usually shed more light on the situation.
My truck uses oil, always did from out of the showroom...Don't think I "worked" the engine hard enough from day one to properly seat the rings. Never bothered me much as it runs GREAT!

PS...and for whatever reason > my truck seems to burn oil when I fill it to the "full" mark vs when I leave it a qt or so low

 

[sle2115]

PS...and for whatever reason > my truck seems to burn oil when I fill it to the "full" mark vs when I leave it a qt or so low

Are you checking it hot? 12 quarts of oil expands quite a bit from normal to operating temp. If you fill it to full cold, then run it, you will be overfilled at operating temp. Someone posted an article from a Ford service manual somewhere and how overfilling will cause oil consumption. You may already know this, just thought I'd bring it up again.

 

[franklin2]

Are you checking it hot? 12 quarts of oil expands quite a bit from normal to operating temp. If you fill it to full cold, then run it, you will be overfilled at operating temp. Someone posted an article from a Ford service manual somewhere and how overfilling will cause oil consumption. You may already know this, just thought I'd bring it up again.

12 quarts? My 89 only takes 10.

 

[gonecrazyi]

Its 12 if you run a powerstroke filter.

 

[6 Nebraska IDIs]

The only way to know for sure if guides are worn is to check them as described. I have the unique experience of having a brand new set of guides and seals cause a valve failure, so be careful who you take your heads to if you need to service them. The machinist I took mine to installed the wrong valve seals on the exhaust valves and in less than 75 miles I had a stuck valve because of it.
Other than that allot of factors contribute to valve guide wear. The biggest I can think of is lack of proper maintenance. My other 83 F250 2wd truck came from an old man that hadn't changed the oil in years. It looked like mud. The motor ran awesome, but it burned oil after I got to it and gave it a proper service. I ran it for about a little over a year and it suffered a valve failure. Sometimes there's just nothing you can do but run them until they die and then revive them.

 

[icanfixall]

10 quarts with the small filter and 11 quarts with the powerstroke filter... Never 12 quarts..... Thats an overfilled oil pan...

 

[87crewdually]

Its 12 if you run a powerstroke filter.

FL1995 only adds one qt. to give you a total of 11 qts, not 12.

 

[HammerDown]

10 qts for my 7.3 but for whatever reason it likes to be a qt on the low side...so I leave it there.