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hello everyone. im in need of some serious help. i picked up a 02 honda civic with a blown head gasket that i didnt know about and now after changing it my car is burning oil like crazy! what could have possibly gone wrong to do such a thing? i didnt have coolant sitting in cylinders. car wasnt burning oil before head gasket. pretty sure timing belt is in correct position but plan on checking it tomorrow do to me only holding tension on timing belt while it was still attached to timing gear instead of pulling everything apart. could the timing belt being off a tooth cause that big of an issue? burned almost 5 quarts of oil today with a couple hrs of driving!

 
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not leaking! burning! checked pcv valve to see if i had a bunch of blow by and no oil in line.

 
Rep Power: 518

How long did you have the car before you discovered the blown head gasket? (maybe just before you bought it, someone added stuff to the oil to hide it)
What event caused you to discover the blown head gasket? (most people notice overheating)
During the repair, was the cylinder head found to be warped ? (proof of major overheat)
Was any valve work done while the head was off? (possible valve stem seals mis-installed)

Barring some weird human error or a bad pcv or cylinder wall damage, the typical causes of oil burning are piston rings and/or valve stem seals.

 
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it only took a few days before my heat wasnt normal. filled everything and coolant started barfing out after going up hills and heavier loads. i drove for awhile with no ovr heating issues but constantly added coolant as it is my only vehicle and a little broke at the moment. added 2 quarts in a month so its been burning some i guess but just took a turn for the worst. like i said it didnt have this issue prior to head gasket which i did myself. didnt change valve seals. didnt check for head flatness with a straight edge but even if the head was warped how is it possible to burn that much oil and not have compression blowing out the pcv valve?

 
Rep Power: 518

Antifreeze entering the cylinders can do harm
Does this mean it did not have unusual oil consumption immediately after the head gasket was done?
It's been a month since the head gasket job? How many miles?
Now suddenly it's drinking oil this fast?

How many miles on the car? (or engine)

Can you see blue smoke from the exhaust? While driving?
You may be able to judge if it's rings or valves if you can identify the running conditions it smokes under,

Read spark plugs, is it affecting all cylinders or just one?

Stuck oil rings can pass a lot of oil and you can't identify this from a compression test.
The oil rings could be missing and compression would still be fine

Scotch-Brite and roloc disc can leave behind abrasive debris which can ruin an engine

I meant to hide the oil consumption. If it started drinking oil immediately after the oil change......

 
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update is timing is fine. changed pcv valve. old one seemed stuck kinda closed. added marvel to oil and added to each cylinder as i tore down to check timing. 3 out of 4 plugs were darker in color with some carbon build up while 1 was an ok light toasted color with very little carbon. still runs like **** and still smokes even after all marvel was cleared up. marvel was added to hopefully loosen up a stuck oil ring but it doesnt look like one cylinder but 3

oil consumption was nowhere near what it is now. never smoked. coolant was added daily but was also lost daily out of reservoir and wasnt enter combustion chamber. never over heated to my knowledge
its been a week since head gasket change and oil consumption has gotten worse all week along with the blue smoke mostly from an idle but rpms over 3k up hills and such.
cylinders were clean and clear of contaminants before assembly. this isnt my first time and is more then likely closer to over a hundred or more head gasket jobs with no other issues. i have been working on vehicles for about 18 years. rings and valves dont go to crap overnight and i never said i changed the oil. i atually added 1 quart of 5-20 when i first checked oil upon recieving car. i did the gasket on a saturday. sunday seemed fine but had little hesitation. monday about the same. tuesday noticed some smoke after idling for 10 minutes then taking off driving and added 1 more quart of 5-20. wednesday even more smoke. thursday i put in 2 quarts of 5-30 because oil light came on when i got to work, drove an hr to get my kids after work and oil light came back on at which point i bought 3 quarts of 10-30 and added. came home which was another hr and barely touching stick!

back to my questions!
could the timing be off and cause my issue? no!
could i have missed something in assembly to cause this issue. probably not. ive retraced my steps. everything was very clean before assembly and followed torque specs and pattern. could the head be warped and some how having the oil pump push oil through head gasket and into one or more cylinders. possibly and this is what im leaning towards as this was such a sudden event and i never checked for flatness. seals dont go from ok to junk in days and neither do rings and oil rings without some outside forces but like i said cylinders were clean and i never touched the valve seals. no parts cleaner or anything sprayed into cylinders or onto seals.

maybe i will try to change valve seals as a last ditch effort but i have a very hard time believing that could be the issue in such a short period of time and even less believable is that my rings or oil rings went bad just like that after head gasket.

if someone added some magic stuff to my oil that stopped that much oil consumption, i would love to know what it was so i can put it back in.

 
Rep Power: 518

Got fault codes? Scanner that can display live data?

Done a compression test on it yet?

 
Rep Power: 119

 
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So theres no pressured oil traveling through head at all? Hmm, i wonder how the cam gets oiled and why there is oil in the top of the head at all if the oil pump doesnt pump it through the head. The oil pump definitely doesnt put out the psi that a compression stroke or combustion would but i definitely has to be pressured to push it into the cam bearings.

still not believing several different cylinders oul rings some how became compressed and all stuck letting it burn stupid amounts of oil in a short amount of time. It is definitely hard to believe that the head is warpped enough to allow oil by into combustion chamber but not compression back into oil or coolant somewhere.

the situation sucks and its looking like the car ia doomed to the scrap yard regardless. Its not worth tearing the engine down to check oil rings. If i were to get even close to that id just change the head and gasket again to one ive checked to be flat but probably before all that ill buy a different car because final diagnostics of problem would be to tear at least half of it down again if not most the engine because a compression test won't really indicate bad oil rings. Leak down could be a valve or cylinder wear.

answer this question for me guys.
how many mechanics have you heard of doing a head gasket then the car start buring oil through oil rings days later?

ive literally done head gaskets on vehicles that were being drivin with a milkshake of oil and coolant in oil pan. Miss firing from all the coolant entering combustion chamber for god knows how long. Tore them down. Cleaned them up. Put back together. Flushed oil system and not a problem.

 
Rep Power: 518

I think he meant the drainoff oil is not pressurized, since he was talking about the large holes that allow oil to drain from the head areas into the crankcase.
'
Of course there is a pressurized oil feed from block to head (I suffer from CRS and I really can't remember exactly where without looking but it may be through one of the bolt holes), but if that were leaking (due to warped head?) I'd kinda expect oil to be appearing in the antifreeze at an alarming rate too.

Where's your compression test results?
Used engines can be had for cheap if you're willing to drop one in. Put a new head gasket in before it goes in the car LOL

I had it happen on one of my own cars. Not a Honda. 84 Mazda 626.
Condensed version: On a trip 6 hours from home. Head gasket blew during trip, problem became obvious next morning at startup. Filling a cylinder with water after shutoff. Clouds of steam out the exhaust while driving. Drove it for a half week then drove it home 6 hours adding water every hour.
Did head gasket job.
The one cylinder that was drinking from the cooling system was spotless inside from steam cleaning LOL
I think that one cylinder burned more oil than the other three....but it's been 25 years since I had that car.
Sometimes I would start the engine up cold it would dump so much oil smoke you couldn't see for a block in any direction, then quit smoking after running a minute or two.. (stuck oil rings) .
Had some faint blue smoke in the exhaust after warmup, BUT Car had 180k when the head gasket let go. Already using oil. Not worth going in again, oil and spark plugs were cheap enough....sold car at 200k miles and enough rust damage to be unsafe.


With customers at the shop:
It's always "customer says", there's never any proof the engine wasn't already consuming oil. (Most of the customers I deal with never opened their own hood until after a major repair)

We have no way of knowing how hot the engine has been, nor how many times it's been hot.
Though if it warped the head I can guess how hot it got.......and if the ECM set a code for the coolant temp sensor I can guess how hot it had to be to set that code......

Severe overheating can collapse (take the spring tension out of) the piston rings. They were already designed as very low tension rings to start with, any change is significant

Antifreeze or water entering the cylinder(s) reduces cylinder wall lubrication, hydrolock can cause even more mechanical damage

An engine that's been through a "thermal event" can suffer damage, and damage doesn't always make itself known right away.

I'm sure there's more
..



If you're going through 5 quarts of oil in 200 miles I would think it would leave some evidence

 
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To me it sounds like the engine was overheated to the point where the "Oil Control Rings got Coked stiff" or in other simpler terms lost there "springiness" to contract & expand me Personally i wouldnt go thru all the trouble time, $ re-tearing engine down or replacing engine on a 2002 year vehicle. trade it in and get something newer its a much wiser option.

 
Rep Power: 119

 
Rep Power: 0

There was a code a few weeks ago that was coolant temp low but that was due to the thermostat stuck open after i tried head gasket sealer. All cylinders had some carbon build up and most of it was lightly toasted from a white color. Havent done a compression test as i dont have a tester available. Probably wont do one and if it continues to burn oil at the before mentioned rate ill add it until i get something else.

just drove car down to store. It smoked for a little then there hasnt been anymore smoke. I have a hard time qith the oil rings being the issue but i guess i cant rule it out as it has now seemed to stop after the marvel in cylinders and oil.
Im going to vuy some new plugs now and see if the hesitation goes away.