Fuel in the oil....

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L

Lancester

Guest
I know this is an A body site but I hope it's ok to ask this here. I have an '85 Plymouth colt with the small 4 cylinder (1496 cc). I'm getting a LOT of fuel in the oil. The only place I can figure is from the fuel pump, which is a fairly new reman. Other than that it runs fine. Any ideas where this might be coming from?
 
Do you live in a area that has cold winters? Do you have injectors?

A Cold winter starts are the likely culprit. Engines require a significantly richer fuel/air mixture to start in cold weather. A high percentage of the fuel that's delivered from the injectors and vaporized into the air drawn into the engine condenses back into liquid on the cold internal engine components, including the valves, pistons, combustion chambers and cylinder walls.

The extra fuel supplied for startup ensures that enough fuel remains vaporized to mix with the air and ignite from the spark. Remember, the engine can burn only fuel vapor, not liquid fuel.

If everything goes according to plan, the engine fires up quickly on the richer fuel/air mixture, begins heating the internal engine parts and ultimately re-vaporizing the condensed fuel and burning it during the warm-up cycle. This is why an engine will flood so quickly in extremely cold weather if it doesn't start in the first few seconds of cranking.

In that scenario, the injectors continue to deliver fuel and more and more of it condenses in the combustion chamber, wetting and ultimately "drowning" the spark plug, making it incapable of firing. The result is a flooded engine.

In some cases, holding full throttle to "unflood" the engine by maximizing air flow and reducing fuel flow will allow the engine to start. When the engine management computer recognizes a wide-open throttle at cranking rpm, it cuts the injector pulse width in half to reduce fuel flow to help clear a flooded condition.

In your area if cold, it would seem that at least some liquid fuel generated on cold starts is ending up in the crankcase mixed with the oil. A small amount isn't harmful, and in most cases will evaporate during a fully warmed-up drive -- perhaps 20 minutes. The danger, of course, is that gasoline is an effective solvent, diluting the oil and reducing lubrication to sensitive engine parts.

You should carefully check the components and function of the positive crankcase ventilation (PCV) system to determine if it's functioning properly.

It should draw combustion gases and pressure out of the crankcase and through the induction system.

If the PCV valve or system is not working correctly, excess combustion blow-by, including raw fuel from a cold start, can end up in the crankcase. An iced-up PCV valve, leaking or plugged hose or filter can effectively disable the PCV system, resulting in excess crankcase pressure.
 
1966 dart wagon said:
wow :book: thats quite the amount of technical stuff there jim, lots of good info :thumblef:

Cheated....from a on-line manual! :book:
 
A Leaky injector could be the culprit also, if its a lot of fuel, like you can smell fuel on the dipstick, I would guess fuel pump. :book:

Another problem with highly combustable liquid in your crankcase is a Crankcase explosion, they are very rare now a days but devastating to an engine if one happens. :sad2:
 
Nope,Holley remanufactured Mikuni carb.$$$ Biatch to remove the top & get it & the choke linkage back together properly. A while back the needle & seat were hanging up. I wonder if that could let enough fuel past to cause this. I mean, there is a lot of fuel getting in the oil. Maybe I should put a regulator on there & set it at 4 lbs or so.....
 
I've seen carbs just dribbling fuel into an engine before, if its doing this while at rest then thats the problem. Usually though you will have idle and drivability problems that go along with fuel just pouring into the manifold.
 
That got me thinking & I MAY have solved my problem. I'll share my idiocy here hoping that it may help someone else. That car being an '85 had the (pos) feedbcak carb on it. I never could get it to run right, possibly due to the fact that it sat for quite some time. So I ordered the reman for a '79 colt to get away from the emission control crap (besides, the reman feedback carb was over $600.00). Here's where I made my mistake.

The fuel pump on this car has two outlets and there is also the return line to the tank. On the original carb, one of the fuel pump lines goes into the needle & seat portion of the carb, one goes to a fitting on the side of the accelerator pump and the return line also plumbs into a fitting on the accelerator pump. Crazy. The reman carb I bought had only one fitting on the accelerator pump in addition to the feed to the needle & seat.

My mistake here is that I put the lines in the wrong places. One of the lines coming from the fuel pump has good pressure coming out & the other one seems to just dribble. I didn't realize this 'till today. I put the dribble line onto the needle & seat fitting, the one with more pressure on the fitting to the accelerator pump & plugged the return to the tank.

I'm pretty sure this was causing an overload on the the needle & seat or else a backward flow through (possibly overfilling the bowl) the carb as when the car would sit, It would flood badly. So now, I put the "high pressure" feed from the pump to the needle & seat. This causes fuel to come out the accelerator pump fitting while the car is running so I'm guessing that is where the return line should be connected. This is the way I have it now (I plugged the "dribble line") & it seems to be running correctly.

Any idea why the two feeds from the fuel pump? I'm betting had I bought a '79 pump it would have come with only one.


Crazy......
 
If you got fuel in your oil.... A) the car is running super rich, B) Your rings are not sealing, C) Stock fuel pump leaking into block, D) Clogged pvc valve thats all i can think of for now... hope it helps.
 
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