Confused and Using Oil

[CKyle494]

I have a '00 7.3L that is giving me fits , I am using oil like there is no tomorrow. It has slowed down to about a quart every 200 miles now. What has been done is everything (rebuilt complete engine, new pistons, rings, valves, head job, 2 NEW turbo's , seals, even checked and was told the injectors were calibrated and tested with new o-rings.) what in the world could this be?

I have put about 2200 miles on it since then and haven't pulled anything but what is in the bed of the truck (the bedliner). The only smoke is when it is first started in the mornings with a little puff of blueish white smoke and after about 2 seconds it is gone. I suspect this is just the diesel being burnt while it is still cold, about 14 the other morning.

Am I just wrong to suspect that the injectors could be causing this problem? (Is the high pressure oil that is needed to make them work maybe going through somewhere?) It was using about a quart every 125 miles before the rebuild, I was assured that the rebuild would solve the problem and have actually a 12 month warranty with it. I got the high pressure crossover hose the other day and put it on, it quietened it down some and purrs better now but the oil consumption issue is still there>

Since then I have been hurting with this problem and alot of money later Christmas sucked at my house, Santa didn't get milk to drink, it was water....thought about waiting for him to get a big buck to hang to dry, but the fire went out and I got cold and went to bed hungry.....

 

[02stroker]

Seems to me the oil might be leaking externally. If it was using that much oil I would think you might see more smoke. I'm just guessing though. We had a rollback at work with a 7.3 that had o-rings go bad on the injectors and it smoked blue alot. Was any kind of break-in preformed on the motor after the rebuild? When we rebuild an engine, we use a special break-in oil in it for the first 100 hours or so to help seat the rings. The engines we do are in farm tractors, so we run them on the dyno at full load for a while to break them in. Idleing a new engine is not good either. It needs to have some load on it to seat the rings. Hope this helps some.

 

[CKyle494]

There is no leaks at all on the ground after being parked for 2 straight days, (I can't stand a vehicle that leaks on my nice concrete) as far as the break in oil? I wasn't told of any. It is my Cousin that did the rebuild and he has been building and driving Diesels for about 40 years now, I told him to treat it like it was his and drive it ever how it should be driven during break-in (he kept it for 3 months) and my driving has been 50% city and 50% hwy so it has had the best of both. I refilled with Motorcraft 15-40 Diesel in the 5 quart jug. I haven't gunned it or got on it at all, and not over 67 on hwy. Thanks for the input, how long would a 100 hours be in mileage? Around 1000?

 

[CKyle494]

P.S. 02stroker LOVE the color.......

 

[02stroker]

I guess 100 hours would really depend on where you are driving. If you live in the city, you'r average speed will be slower and equal less miles, where as if you did all interstate running your miles would be higher due to high speeds. It would be something you would have to keep a note on from the start. 1000 miles in 100 hours only equals 10 miles an hour. 100 hours at 55 mph for example would be 5500 miles. Perhaps it just needs some more break-in time. If I were you, I'd drive it some more, get maybe 5000 miles on the rebuild, and see where it's oil consumption is at. The new engines at work use a surprising amount of oil the first 50 hours or so. Running at full load, they may use 1/2 quart in the first hour. It's normal in a new engine to use some oil. You said you have a 12 month warranty on the rebuild. With 40 years of experience, I'm sure you'r cousin knows what he is doing, but anything can happen. I've seen piston rings break when they were installed. I'm not saying this is what is wrong with you'r engine, only that these kind of things do occasionally happen. Not sure what the oil consumption rate is on a newly overhauled 7.3.


You seem to have a good eye for color yourself.

 

[JRJ04]

Funny he is asking this...

I just had 3 injectors replaced and get some blueish white smoke at startup but then it goes away.

What seems weird though is that if i sit there and gun it, black smoke will come out (which is normal) but then after that I'll get a puff of blueish white smoke. This can be when its cold or after its up to operating temps. Could it be that its taking time to get the new injector o-rings seated properly? I had a compression test run on the cylinders and it all checked out good as well.

 

[CKyle494]

Thanks stroker, I will give it until after my first oil change, he wants me to bring it in at about 4000 and do an oil analysis on what comes out and cut the filter open and see what is there also. Guess I will just add until some time after that and go from there. Thanks alot for the info.

JR mine is the same smoke for just a few seconds then goes away. When I get on it it doesn't make smoke anymore, no black clouds rolling out from behind at anytime, but then again I haven't gotten on it hard yet.....want to make sure that it doesn't grenade on me.........