Oil on spark plug ...

85 Toyota Pickup
22RE - 85-90K miles or so on rebuilt engine.

Was driving on freeway (engine running fine) then after exiting and
catching a red light, the engine was idling rough. After revving the
throttle a bit, it seemed to smooth out.

Then the next day, I went to move the truck and when I started it up,
it acted like it was running on 3 cylinders :(

Pulled the plugs today and the #4 (rear) plug was wet with oil.

There doesn't *seem* to be any oil in the coolant or coolant in the
oil, so what am I encountering? Blown head gasket? Bad valve seal?

What ever the cause, it may just be time to retire the truck :(

TIA

....

On Sat, 17 Sep 2005 22:52:21 +0000, noneyabusiness wrote:
[color=blue]
> 85 Toyota Pickup
> 22RE - 85-90K miles or so on rebuilt engine.
>
> Was driving on freeway (engine running fine) then after exiting and
> catching a red light, the engine was idling rough. After revving the
> throttle a bit, it seemed to smooth out.
>
> Then the next day, I went to move the truck and when I started it up,
> it acted like it was running on 3 cylinders :(
>
> Pulled the plugs today and the #4 (rear) plug was wet with oil.
>
> There doesn't *seem* to be any oil in the coolant or coolant in the
> oil, so what am I encountering? Blown head gasket? Bad valve seal?
>
> What ever the cause, it may just be time to retire the truck :(
>
> TIA
>
> ...[/color]

Bad rings? Some sort of blow-by is going on.

I would run a compression test to verify the rings being bad. If the
other cylinders are high then it might be worth fixing, depending on how
the body and rest of the trucks shape.

J


noneyabusiness wrote:
[color=blue]
> 85 Toyota Pickup
> 22RE - 85-90K miles or so on rebuilt engine.
>
> Was driving on freeway (engine running fine) then after exiting and
> catching a red light, the engine was idling rough. After revving the
> throttle a bit, it seemed to smooth out.
>
> Then the next day, I went to move the truck and when I started it up,
> it acted like it was running on 3 cylinders :(
>
> Pulled the plugs today and the #4 (rear) plug was wet with oil.
>
> There doesn't *seem* to be any oil in the coolant or coolant in the
> oil, so what am I encountering? Blown head gasket? Bad valve seal?
>
> What ever the cause, it may just be time to retire the truck :(
>
> TIA
>
> ...[/color]

"noneyabusiness" <me@you.com> wrote in message
news:el5pi19m33qar5hh71o79p8vfspsi8ru6l@4ax.com...[color=blue]
> 85 Toyota Pickup
> 22RE - 85-90K miles or so on rebuilt engine.
>
> Was driving on freeway (engine running fine) then after exiting and
> catching a red light, the engine was idling rough. After revving the
> throttle a bit, it seemed to smooth out.
>
> Then the next day, I went to move the truck and when I started it up,
> it acted like it was running on 3 cylinders :(
>
> Pulled the plugs today and the #4 (rear) plug was wet with oil.
>
> There doesn't *seem* to be any oil in the coolant or coolant in the
> oil, so what am I encountering? Blown head gasket? Bad valve seal?
>
> What ever the cause, it may just be time to retire the truck :(
>
> TIA
>[/color]
4 possibilities - leaking valve stem seal, ring problems, head gasket leak,
or cracked block, in that order of likelihood.
--
Ray O
correct the return address punctuation to reply