Can you guys help me read my plugs. I think most of the gunk is oil and there is oil on the threads of the plugs. The pics shows one of the plugs, the rest of the pics came out fuzzy but some other plugs are better and some worse. All used to look cruddy after the rebuild, now some look worse, some better. Perhpas some of the rings have started to seat. Some plugs look like they should. Also i have included a pic of the O2 sensor which looks pretty good to me.

The motor has about 4000 miles since the rebuild and blows a little oil during hard acceleration and a very little during start up. The valve seals are new, of course all new rings.

 

1

 

2

 

3
This plug along with a couple others have chipped ceramic surfaces. And these are standard Delco plugs.

 

Yep, she's burnin' bigtime earl. Might be the rings, might be the guide seals, might be you're sucking oil past a leaky intake gasket or through the PCV system. Figuring out where it's coming from is going to be the chore.

One diagnostic technique I have used to see if it's the rings or if it's coming through with the intake mixture is to install a fresh set of plugs. Drive it around for maybe 100-200 miles. Whatever you think it'll take to put some color to them, but not toally foul them out. Shut it down clean after driving around for a while before you proceed.

Take out the plugs AND KEEP THEM IN ORDER SO YOU KNOW WHERE THEY CAME FROM. Look at them one at a time. Is one side of the electrode dark while the rest is clean?

IF YES..... use a marker and put a line on the OUTSIDE of the plug (porcelain) that is in the same spot as the dark mark on the INSIDE part of the electrode. Screw it back into the same hole it came out of and tighten normally. Does the mark on the outside of the plug point directly at the intake valve for that cylinder? If so, you've got oil coing in through with the intake mix.

IF NO..... and it's evenly oil-coated it's the rings.

It is rare to have only one or two rings go bad- usually they all go at once, unless they were installed wrong or they are broken for whatever reason.

 

yea, its only cruddy on the half pointing to the valves. I can prolly rule out the intake gasket because the machine shop put on the intake gasket, it burnt oil, then i had to change the intake gasket b/c i pulled the heads, so i doubt both myself and the machine shop wrecked the intake gasket install. So what should i look for or replace in the pcv system.
thanks for the help
John Perdoch

 

Yesterday I had a plug that looked just like #3 full of cruddy carbon crap after only about 12,000 mi. I noticed that when I pulled my intake a couple weeks ago that in the lifter valley I had major gooey cruddy buildup at the bottom of the valve stems right over that cylinder, So I must be leaking major oil from my seals I'm thinking on that cylinder. Time for some 1.6 rockers and valve seal replacement.