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Quick recap: '87 900 Turbo Manual 3 Door
After finding a very small amount of milkiness in my oil...i assumed the worst. This coupled with a low oil pressure warning light, and the occasional oil smoke out the exhaust and dipstick, made me think there was a head gasket problem. Though, a few other symptoms (or lack thereof) pointed me in a different direction. Specifically, that i smell no burning coolant ever, and no moisture in my HVAC system.
So here are the tests that i performed, followed by their results, then a few questions:
Oil pressure test: Ok, so i couldnt actually check the oil pressure because i dont have a socket the right size for the sender unit. What the hell is that, 22mm? I have a 21mm, and a 24mm...and both were wrong. Ugh. But...the good news about this is....i found the oil leak, and the sender wire was only 10% attached. So i re-crimped the wire with a new spade connector...and all is well on the dash. I have a new sender on the way. THe oil leak is from the middle of the sender...which ive read is fairly common.
Spark Plugs: They look whitish. Its running lean. All piston heads looked dirty and like they were burning the correct stuff, so if it is the HG...the breach isnt internal. There is some oil caked around by the VC vent at the front of the motor near spark plug 4...and very little near the plugs. not milky...all oil. Also...some oil on top of the VC....looking like it blew out of the PCV nipple on the VC.
Compression test: This is where some bad news happens. Cyl 1 was pretty low in comparison to the others...but cyl 4 didnt look so great either. the numbers were:
Cyl 1: 105
Cyl 2: 120
Cyl 3: 135
Cyl 4: 122
I did a second pass on these and the numbers came back even a little bit lower....with cyl 1 hitting as low as 95.
Few other points: There is a small stream of coolant dripping down the side of the block under the exhaust header. It looks about btw cyl 3 and 4....but i cant see up there to see where its coming from. In fact...i shoved my camera in there and still cant find the source. It looks dry where the head meets the block. It doesnt look like it drips from the head. If anything..it looks like its pooling on top of the tranny from under the bottom end of the motor.
This car has a known blowby condition...getting smoke into exhaust and dipstick. Is it possible these compression numbers are coming from bad valve stems...which could also be causing the blowby?
Also...running lean? Why? Could this be related to base boost being set too high?
Thoughts?
posted by 75.99.141...
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