'78 EFI burning oil - oil breather issue

[smitty1976bus]

Hello all,

Have '78 2.0L EFI, which has been running great, but always burned just a bit of oil. Recently, it's been burning a lot of oil. While I fear the worst, I hope for the best. Last week I had a vacuum leak, so went in a examined and fixed the issue (AAR issue, fixed.. pretty sure). Bus back to running good, still a slight vacuum leak, but running well enough. While fixing the leak, I noticed that there was some strange oil like stuff (like a water/oil milkshake film), all inside the oil breather and oil breather vacuum line. I cleaned it up, and didn't think much of it. But today I dove into the engine hoping to find something to stop the oil burning. This is what's in the oil breather and tube.. again:

Is this normal? Or whats causing it? I took out my plugs too, to see if theyre covered in oil, but they seem ok (but i'm not an expert):

All except plug #3:

It was a strange color, almost the same color as the strange oily film.. Not sure what to think..

Is there suppose to be some filter inside the oil breather? I feel like I've read somewhere that people put some filter in there to prevent this... but now i can't find anything about that.

Also, I've read a lot of forums on EFI and the PCV valve, and i'm pretty sure that rubber valve thing is gone, and it's just a straight breather at this point. Is there any need to have it feed into the S-Boot

Thanks
SS

[sjbartnik]

The "mayonnaise" is an emulsion of water and oil. It tends to happen when you do a lot of short trips and don't really get the engine warmed up fully. Water vapor is a natural byproduct of combustion and some will always get into the crankcase. The mayonnaise can form in places that are relatively cool (like a breather tube) where the water doesn't get fully evaporated from the oil.

This has nothing to do with how much oil it's burning, FYI. It just means you aren't getting the engine warmed up fully.

BUT: if it's burning oil because of bad rings, for example, then that's more blowby into the crankcase = more water vapor into the crankcase = more water to mix into the oil.

I see a leak down test in your future.
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[aeromech]

Good answer

Yes, in my opinion you should top off the oil and go for a 100 mile drive. Then check again your oil level under the same conditions and see if your chocolate milk has disappeared. Continue to do this to see if there’s a trend towards oil usage.
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[SGKent]

as others said - you have water in your oil. There are two fixes - drive the engine until it gets hot or replace the oil. If you lack a thermostat that is the cause along with short trips.
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[Wildthings]

In a cold climate having engine snot in the PVC valve and hoses is pretty normal. You want to make sure nothing gets blocked with either the snot or with ice.

Two if your plugs look oil free while the other two may be seeing a very small amount of oil.

Crankcase ventilation is very important, I lent my Subaru powered Vanagon to my daughter for 4ish years. The van did fine for her in the Colorado, where it was used for a variety of purposes; shopping, trips, etc. but when she moved to eastern Oregon, the one winter the night time lows day after day were running about -20°F and she was only using the van to drive three miles to work and back so the engine was never really getting warm thus ice and frozen snot were building up in the ventilation hoses. One day the hoses closed entirely and all the oil blew out of the engine in about a mile of driving locking the engine up.

[smitty1976bus]

Thank you for all the replies.

[aeromech]

Sorry, I’ve lost track. Is your engine fresh with just a few miles or is it fully broken in. Breather pressure will be higher until it’s broken in
_________________
Lead Mechanic: San Diego Air and Space Museum
Licensed Airframe and Powerplant Mechanic
Licensed Pilot (Single engine Land)
Boeing 727,737-200-300-400,757,767
Airbus A319,320,321
DC9/MD80
BAe146
Fokker F28/F100
VW type 1 1962,63,65,69,72
VW Type 2 1971 (3 ea.) 1978, 1969
VW Jetta
VW Passat
Capable of leaping tall buildings in a single bound

[smitty1976bus]

[SGKent]

[raygreenwood]

It sounds like you are actually sucking up quite a bit of oil from the breather. The engine will burn this....even if your rings and guides are fine.

No....there should not be a stream of oil running out of the tube.

How is the diaphragm in the PCV valve?

One thing you can do that will help keep some of the oil in....is buy some copper chore boy pads

https://www.amazon.com/Chore-Boy-Copper-Scouring-Pad-2ct/dp/B006K3XS5A

Get the pure copper ones like these...not the steel ones and not no name copper plated steel. This way if a small piece comes loose and goes into the engine...it is soft enough to not hurt anything.

Stuff the box under the oil breather with one or two. Oil that is sucking past gets wet onto the fibers and does not get sucked out. Its similar in effect to the "coir" fiber in the oil bath air cleaners.

Ray

[smitty1976bus]

[Wildthings]

If you let the engine idle for very long before pulling the plugs, then it would be normal for them to soot up a bit. If your idle mixture is off that will soot them up worse.

Vanagon 2.1L Waterboxer engines have a 6mm(IIRC) orifice in the breather hose. The orifice keeps the intake from exerting too much vacuum on the crankcase thus drawing out more oil with the blowby gases than it should. I have never tried adding the orifice to an air cooled engine to see how it works, but I would suspect it would, though "tuning" might be necessary, tuning that would include maybe experimenting with different size orifices and adjusting the idle mixture. Adding the orifice might be enough to offset a bad PCV valve.

Be sure to pull your dipstick once to wipe it down and then a second time to check the level. If your dipstick seals well to the tube and you don't wipe the stick down first you may get a high reading, usually when cold. On a recently run engine you need to let the engine sit for several minutes before checking the oil to let the oil return to the sump before checking it.

Running synthetic oil can sometimes reduce oil usage.

[SGKent]

if this is an FI engine then the diaphragm being gone will cause oil to be drawn into the intake because of the way the system is plumbed. If this is a carb engine with a breather to the top of the filter then it won't matter much.
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[smitty1976bus]

[SGKent]

you need to find a good used PCV valve. The way you test them is suck on the small hole on the top. If it holds vacuum then it is good. Otherwise the engine sucks air thru the case and messes with your fuel to air ratio. It will also burn oil.
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“Most people don’t know what they’re doing, and a lot of them are really good at it.” - George Carlin

[smitty1976bus]

[Wildthings]

I don't think sticking the scrub pad up into the breather itself is a very good idea, as it gets carboned up, the inlet to the breather is going to be restricted more and more over time and suddenly you might have a problem of too high a case pressure.

[SGKent]

the copper is a ghetto fix. It will sulfate and dissolve over time.
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“Most people don’t know what they’re doing, and a lot of them are really good at it.” - George Carlin

[smitty1976bus]

[raygreenwood]