losing oil
 

i have a 1993 f150 with a 5.8l v8, it runs good with 130,000 miles except it takes a quart every week and a half. I have checked everything i can think of and i don't see where it is losing it. Is there any way to check if it is burning it? Also does anyone else have this problem?

What color is your exhaust smoke?
What is your compession, wet and dry?
What do your plugs look like?
What does your PCV line look like?
Is there oil in your coolant or vice versa?

Be sure and check if your oil pan gasket is pushed out from between the pan and block. If it looks like its squished out you my be loosing some there.

How many miles do you drive in a week and a half? If your driving a thousand miles that much oil would be pretty normal for an engine that old. It probably is burning a little oil, i would start with a compression test, check for blue smoke after a cold start up and go from there.

-Jon

My gasket is pushed out so far I'm almost sure one of the pan bolts isn't in the gasket hole. :mad:

On my truck, between that and the rear main seal seeping slightly, it tends to blow back and gather on the bottom of the bell housing and eventually drip. If you didn't look good and figure it out you might think it was somehow leaking oil from the tranny. LOL

Mines the same way at 100,000 miles. Chances are you pan gasket and the rear main seal are toast. I generally add 1 quart in between oil changes as a result of the leaks. It surprisingly doesn't burn any oil before it started leaking not 10k miles ago. My best theory on the reason for the leaks is that my truck is extremely teritorial. :D

Gamehunter,

Mine is much the same. My leak is still very minor, and usually I only have to add maybe a 1/2 quart at most between changes. It doesn't seem to burn any really, but the leak does irritate me.

When I got mine it had a little over 70K on it and leaked then. It doesn't seem to have increased, but after a couple years it has a spot marked. :D

My pan gasket was pushed out betwen the bolt holes so far that while it was running it would billow white smoke out behind.:mad: I replaced it immediately and a few thou later it was out again.:help: It hasn't really leaked much so I've ignored it.

What is it with these pan gaskets...I replaced mine finaly at 80k.
My whole bumper/tailgate would be covered in oil after a few miles on the freeway.

I have a 4.9l doing the same thing. My pan gasket is leaking from the front to the rear on the L side. Can the pan be dropped with the engine in place? I figure I will try to raise the engine in the front to add some clearance.

I believe that the gasket gets pushed out from crankcase pressure. Mine is rubber and has little plastic grommets in the boltholes. With the grommets there the pan and block cannot properly "pinch" the gasket between them I'm not exactly willing to try an older style cork gasket. It doesn't look like it would fit right anyway.
My oil pan doesn't look like its bowed between the holes or anything.
You can put the new rubber gasket in without raising the engine but it can be a bugger to do and you need to be a bit of a contortionist to reach some of the bolts. A good bit of patience also helps.
As to what causes the crankcase to have enough pressure to push out the gasket I'm not exactly sure. I suppose its engine specific, but maybe not. I think my problem is caused by blowby at the rings. I overheated my engine badly and think I may have cooked the compression rings and possibly all of them. I do have some power loss. I contribute at least some of that to my 31/10.50's.

I hope this gasket thing isn't widespread. I have a 94 5.8l and will roll 100k on my way home tonight. So far it doesn't use a drop and I extend my changes to 4-5000 miles on Mobil 1. My brother has a 92 Ranger 3.0 and he adds a lot of oil between changes. It has been very well taken care of and has 135,000 miles. He was told that some of these year Fords had cheap gaskets. I'm not sure if his leaks or is burning it. I hate oil problems more than any other problem. Oil is the lifeblood of a motor. I had a saturn that used a qt every 1000 miles and I was told by the service guy that they all do that. Some sort of part or design flaw. He said $1200-1400 to fix it. It's their problem and I have to pay??? Nope, sold it and will never own another saturn. My toyota corolla had 140k when I got rid of it and didn't burn a drop between 4000 mile oil changes.

This is my rant on the subject.