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Piston rings or valve guides, how to tell?

To: mgs@autox.team.net
Subject: Piston rings or valve guides, how to tell?
From: Kendel McCarley <kmmccarley@earthlink.net>
Date: Sun, 25 May 2003 15:24:01 -0700
I'm burning a lot of oil in the "new" car I picked up a couple of weeks 
ago.  The wee thing is going through a quart every fifty miles.

One cylinder is fouling the plug.  It's also leaving droppings in the 
driveway.  Good amounts of smoke and smell upon acceleration, 
particularly after the engine has been run for a while.  Compression is 
at 110 psi on all cylinders when cold cranked.

The car had mostly sat for five years before I just fired 'er up and 
started driving.

My possible cuprits are 1) worn valve guides, 2) aged intake valve 
seals, 3) stuck piston rings, 4) dried out rear and front main seals, 
 and 5) something else I don't know yet to think of.

I'm not so worried about the cylinder head.  My previous experience has 
been with single overhead cam cars, so this pushrod arrangment seems 
awful simple to pull apart.  I'll yank the head this afternoon when it 
starts to cool a little (currently 100F outside, ick!).

What does frighten me is having to get into the bottom end of the 
engine, mainly because I'm running out of time before I take this car on 
a thousand mile drive.

How can I determine whether I have a ring problem or not with these engines?

 - K

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