3SFE good as dead?

[wiccanferret]

So I'm getting on the highway in the Camry when I notice that it's not accelerating very well. At the same time I notice a burning smell, so I dive off the road. When I pull the dipstick there's some oil on it. When I wipe it off and put it back in it comes out bone dry. The wife brings me some oil and it takes 4 quarts.

Now it knocks at high RPM's, runs slightly warmer, has a rough idle, and can't accelerate past about 75mph.

I still can't figure out what happened to the oil. I've been checking it weekly and it hasn't been moving. I fixed quite a few oil leaks on it.

Is there anything I can do to fix this besides replacing the engine, something I'm NOT going to do on this car considering all the hell it's given me?

[wiccanferret]

Nevermind, it answered my question for me. By the time we got home it was knocking all the time and horrendously loud. Time to find another gen 2 so all those new parts don't go to waste...

[es250nut]

Originally Posted by wiccanferret

Nevermind, it answered my question for me. By the time we got home it was knocking all the time and horrendously loud. Time to find another gen 2 so all those new parts don't go to waste...

[Doctor J]

When the older car with higher blow-by rate uses some oil in short trip, the lost oil is usally "replaced" by combustion by-products. The contaminated oil get darker, watery, could smell like gas or rotten egg but the crankcase appears to be full. When the car is driven on high speeds and is getting hot, the water and gas evaporates, leaving the crankcase almost empty. Such thing was very common on old VW bugs.
This is the reason why the owners of cars with high blow-by such as myself must change oil once the cross-hatch on the dipstick is no longer visible through the oil film.

[wiccanferret]

Originally Posted by Doctor J

When the older car with higher blow-by rate uses some oil in short trip, the lost oil is usally "replaced" by combustion by-products. The contaminated oil get darker, watery, could smell like gas or rotten egg but the crankcase appears to be full. When the car is driven on high speeds and is getting hot, the water and gas evaporates, leaving the crankcase almost empty. Such thing was very common on old VW bugs.
This is the reason why the owners of cars with high blow-by such as myself must change oil once the cross-hatch on the dipstick is no longer visible through the oil film.

Nah, the oil was changed two weeks ago, less than 1k miles on it since then. It was still nice and clean at the end of last week.

[ChevelleSSLS6]

Originally Posted by wiccanferret

Nah, the oil was changed two weeks ago, less than 1k miles on it since then. It was still nice and clean at the end of last week.

that's so dang messed up! Where did the oil go? The odo in my camry died at 137k miles and it's probably going to be there for eternity (oil change every 3 months now) and it doesn't use any. You should be able to snap up a gen2 for less than a grand. I got mine for $850 crack in windshield, non functional front pass window, no speedo/odo/cruise, the aforementioned bucking problem (send me a pic of the egr valve and it'll really help me since I don't have a tsm of any sort), and a plymouth hubcap

[Doctor J]

Very strange. To use 4 qts of oil in les then 1kmi, the car must smoke or leak badly. What was the weight of the oil?

[wiccanferret]

That's what I'm thinking J. What's really odd is, it's not like that was the first time the car had been driven that day. It went 48 miles to work, 12 miles to wife's work, 10 to eat, 12 miles back to wife's work, then while merging with traffic suddenly lost 4 qts of oil? I had the radio off and the windows down all day yesterday...no tapping, no hesitation, no warming up, no oil light...NO warning. Hell, when it did start hesitating that's when I pulled off the road and discovered all the oil was gone.

It was 10w30 Castrol High Mileage. It did not smoke and the leaks had been taken care of...I'd been watching it very closely.

[stricular]

I don't want to instigate or cast aspersions, but do you have beef with anybody in your area, ferret?

It almost sounds to me like somebody may have drained your oil.

The reason I say this is because I know these engines can run on what I would call "very little" oil, i.e., barely registering on the dipstick. So theoretically you would have noticed the oil consumption and topped it off before it got to that point.

If it doesnt leak or burn, that would seem to be the simplest explanation.

[wiccanferret]

I don't see how. The car sits next to some very easily agitated dogs at home and in a guarded parking lot at work.

[Doctor J]

Even with leaking oil pump gasket or loose oil filter, the oil could not disappear without the trace(it will drip down due to backflow after engine stop)

[wiccanferret]

Okay, ressurecting this thread. A buddy of mine made a comment that on some engines this damage could be repaired, sometimes with the engine in car. He said that a lot of times it's the crank bearing which can be accessed from under the oil pan leading to a two hour repair and a slightly damaged engine that still runs fine. Is this feasible with a 3S-FE?

I ask because I hesitate to part out the '89 that I bought for its engine since almost everything else works on that car. I bought the '89 for $650 and I could probably make it a $1500 car for about $300, so I really don't want to yank its engine.

Keep in mind with your answers that I know nothing about internal engine repair. I've never even pulled an engine. The closest I've gotten was a timing belt on my 3SFE.

[71Corolla]

If the engine is knocking, replacing a few parts here and there is not a solution. It may work for awhile, but chances are if the engine was oil starved enough to damage the main bearings, there is damage elsewhere as well.

Best thing to do is pull the engine, and either pull it apart for inspection, or find a used engine and plop it in.