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Very Low Oil

2K views 5 replies 5 participants last post by  schoelta 
#1 ·
So I let a friend of mine borrow my truck for a week so he could move and get his house in order. While he was using it, it started running like crap, and would barely run. I went to his place, and it would start, surge like crazy, and would barely rev up. Eventually it would idle, but would misfire like crazy when you try to accelerate. I barely made it home.

Did some searching, for the issues, and many suggested that the oil was low, and it was to the amount of 8 qts. After I added the oil, it started right up, surged for 5-10 seconds, smoothed out, and ran great.

The question is where did the oil go? It's only been 2000 miles sine my last oil change, and before this, I would only have to add maybe a quart or two between my 5000 mile oil changes. As for leaks, I have a little around the oil dipstick tube at the bottom, and some seepage around the oil cooler end seals. There are no drops on the ground at all. I do have a little oil puddling in the valley, but nothing under the HPOP, or turbo. It appears to be just behind the fuel pump. It is is very wet on the heads where the "intake" bolts to it, but none of this would explain the 8 qts low.

Since I added the oil, I've driven about 100 miles, and the oil is still at the full mark. However, I've been driving it like a little old lady because I'm afraid of what could be wrong.

I've read in this forum that the injector seals could be leaking, but I replaced them 10000 miles ago. I also haven't had any driving issues other than this sudden loss of oil. Wouldn't there be other issues if the injector seals were bad? I also read that the oil cooler could cause this loss of oil, but there is no coolant in the oil or oil in the coolant. Could my turbo be taking a crap? But if that was the case, wouldn't I see a smoke screen behind me because of all the extra oil getting into the intake?

I would appreciate any suggestions.

Thanks
 
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#2 ·
If you don't have oil running out of the tailpipe or coating the driveway it has to be injector o-rings. I know one member that had a bad injector that was allowing oil to pass into the fuel internally, but that is rare. I'd say watch the level once a week until you see it go down. Any chance at all it didn't get a full 15 quarts last oil change?
 
#4 ·
Just from experience, I've had a few major leaks on my trucks. The 94 used 8 quarts of oil in 150 miles due to bad injector O-rings letting high pressure oil into the fuel system. This was right after an oil change at 175k miles and it used basically no oil prior. The fuel drained from the fuel bowl was as dark as, well, used motor oil (had only a 1/4 tank at the time). I had another leak of 6 quarts in 10 miles after a High Pressure Oil Pump (HPOP) hose fitting O-ring failed. This left a nice "crumb trail" home on the asphalt. The latest one was on my 97 where a top injector O-ring was completely gone allowing HP oil to leak out around the base of the injector. No oil was lost since it drained back to the oil pan, but it was having issues starting. I'd look at the injector O-rings if it were me. Cheers!
 
#6 ·
So here is what I found. I purchased the better o-ring kits from Riffraff Diesel Performance, and I have not lost any oil in the 400 miles I've driven since then. I guess the lesson is you get what you pay for. I went cheap on the first set (from Amazon) thinking I could save some money. When I pulled the injectors, all of the middle pink o-rings looked like they had need eaten away. Some were worse than others. They also felt very mushy. Even the orange rings were starting to have minor cracks in them. The new o-rings were a lot stiffer, and looked like they were much higher quality.
 
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