Engine work has begun, compression, burning oil, and other questions..

Engine work has begun, compression, burning oil, and other questions..
Kirbot

Kirbot

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South Jersey
Vehicle(s)
Cj7, 258 I-6, T18, D300, D30, Amc 20
Today I finally got the starter replaced, and a tire mounted.
I ran the seafoam, and replaced the spark plugs, it's already running better.

But, it still smokes, a lot...

I checked the compression today, here's the numbers.

140 without oil
160 and with oil

115
122

124
138

AMC 150
154

134
134

140
140

Is that somewhat acceptable?
It's actually much better than I was expecting.
Now I'm wondering, why else would it be smoking so much?
It doesn't seem like the rings are that bad.
 
could be rings or bad valve seals.
 
The valve seals were actually replaced not to long ago.

I guess it could be the rings, but the compression is (almost) in spec.
 
number 1, 20 pounds, not good
2 and 3 are bad numbers for that AMC 150 you are getting on 4

you use the oil trick to check the rings, however with a difference of what you are getting I would say that engine needs a rebuild.

so you said it has had a head job recently? I suggest a in compartment ring job, pull the head and the pan, drop teh crank and mark ll the rod caps as wherer the go and bearings also because they need to go back exactly as taken off
pull all the pistons and ream/surface all the cylinders/ mic for tollerences, put back where they were before with new rings

I know this is a cheap form of a rebuild, but it seams from all your post you are trying not to break the bank

if that head has been rebuilt lately and the rings were not changed then that is a bad thing.
 
how do the bearings sound??
:cool:
 
BajaEdition said:
number 1, 20 pounds, not good
2 and 3 are bad numbers for that AMC 150 you are getting on 4

you use the oil trick to check the rings, however with a difference of what you are getting I would say that engine needs a rebuild.

so you said it has had a head job recently? I suggest a in compartment ring job, pull the head and the pan, drop teh crank and mark ll the rod caps as wherer the go and bearings also because they need to go back exactly as taken off
pull all the pistons and ream/surface all the cylinders/ mic for tollerences, put back where they were before with new rings

I know this is a cheap form of a rebuild, but it seams from all your post you are trying not to break the bank

if that head has been rebuilt lately and the rings were not changed then that is a bad thing.
Click to expand...

The valve seals were replaced, but I think that was it.
That was my dad's one attempt at reducing the smoke, a few years ago.
Didn't help at all.

I heard that the compression was supposed to be between 120, and AMC 150 .
I'm not sure that thats accurate, but it was this forum I read it on.
I'll check my manual to be sure.

One of them is less than that, but not by much.
It seems like there must be some else doing most of the smoking, but what do I know?

I took another two videos of it running, I think It caught the noises better than the last one.

I also took a video of starting it up and driving it around some.

Youtube it taking a while to upload them, I'll add them when there finished.


I'll mention the problems with it again.
I just realized the details are spread out all over the forum, and some i probably forgot to mention.

It burns ALLOT of oil, and I mean a LOT.
It makes a lot of noise, I think some of it is the bearings, I don't what else.
I stalls very easy, but not so I can't live with it.
It smokes, ALLOT.
At idle it's not to bad, but once you step on it, awful...
The plugs get fouled really fast, I just replaced them a few days ago, and I looked at them after runing about, maybe 30 minutes and they were already black and oily.
What else, hmm, that pretty much covers the engine troubles that I can think of.
 
The battery in the camera died, so it'll be a few hours before the videos are uploaded.
 
Finally, one of them is ready.
The other one is the more usefull video, you can't here all the engine noises very well in this one.
But it's 11:00 here, and I don't feel like waiting up another hour or so for it to upload, so it'll have to wait until morning.


Btw, just to get something straight...
You can thank my dad for both crunched fenders, the twisted up bumper, and the smashed up tailgate.
The worst I've done to it was smash 1 tail light.
 
Last edited:
How did you run the seafoam? Did it smoke at that time?
If there is still seafoam in the system
It'll smoke for a bit depending on how you
Used it.
 
1/3 in the gas tank, 1/3 in the oil, and 1/3 in the carb.

It smoked quite allot, I took a video of it, I'll post it in the morning.
It's still in the gas and oil.

It's always smoked though, I'm sure the sea foam couldn't have fixed that.


-Mike, who should have uploaded the other video, cause he's still wide awake...
 
So he did not grind and reseat the valves when he did the valve seals?
 
Unfortunatly.... No
He never put much money into this jeep, he wouldn't even upgrade to a solid axle when the original 2 piece failed.
I can't blame him though, the money just wasn't there to spend.

BajaEdition said:
So he did not grind and reseat the valves when he did the valve seals?
Click to expand...
 
The oil can only be comming from two places either the rings or the valve seals.
I would do a cheap rebuild as Baja suggested with new rings and bearings, you might want to redo the valves and seals also.
If you do the work yourself it really won't cost that much
 
The oil will need to be changed as the seafoam is gonna clean all the gunk out.
Also the seafoam left in the tank will continue to clean the engine deposits and will smoke till it's clean.
Any worn seals will also keep it smoking.

Drain the oil refill with your favorite cheap oil and a bottle of no smoke, remember the no smoke will replace some of the oil so don't over fill it. The seafoam will have cleaned the :dung: in the oil and seals. When you add new oil and no smoke it should seal oil gaskets and help with worn seals.

This being said if the bearing are shot and the motor definitely needs rebuild skip the oil change and no smoke.

I've brought many an engine back from the dead, with seafoam and no smoke and have put several thousand miles on them but there is a point when it's to far gone.
Also the seafoam will foul the plugs till it' used up or changed, or until the engine is clean.
 
Last edited:

I've got more to say, but I have to go eat now.
I'll finish posting pretty soon.
 
That video shows the sounds pretty well, kind of a tapping and lots of vibrating.

When the engine is cold, it doesn't sound to bad.
But once the oil pressure gets down to about 4 or 5, (doesn't take long) it starts sounding pretty bad.
It's not perfect but when the oil pressure is still around 20 or 30, (which is only a few minutes) it sounds halfway presentable.

Maybe it would be worth a try to use the "no smoke".
I saw it when I bought the sea foam, didn't know if it worked very well.

If it doesn't make any differance, then I'll have to start tearing into it.

I don't necessarily need it to run perfect.
I wan't to get this Jeep on the road by the time I get my license (little less than a year) and while there's a lot I would like to do eventually, I don't exactly have a huge budget.

But the way it smokes know, I'd probably get a ticket taking it on the road.

If I can get it "good enough" I can do more work on it as the budget allows.

Here's what it looked like running the seafoam.


I found some old pictures from when this jeep was still on the road.
Looked pretty good back then.
Unfortunatly there was a lot of bondo on it.






This one is one of my favorite pictures.
A friends land cruiser, (unfortunatly it's in just as bad shape, if not worse than the jeep.
Another friends CJ5 , sadly they sold it a while back.
And of course, my jeep.
I was probably there, but I was probably only 6 or 7 at the time.
The picture was taken at Whitesbogs, the one thing in this picture that has stayed the same.
That was actually in a lake, it was of course dry at the time.
 
Last edited:
Something I forgot to mention..

Since I ran the seafoam, it's really hard to start, atleast until it's warmed up, and even then sometimes it's hard.
Whats weird is, before the seafoam, it would start right up every time.
As long as it hasn't been sitting to long. (Like a week or so)

Any idea why the seafoam would have made it harder to start?
 
Today it started right up.
Maybe it took a little time settle into it's freshly cleaned self.
 
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