Engine/Transmission (1998.5 - 2002) Crankcase vent blowing oil all of a sudden?

[jkern]

got a '99 with 74k miles on it, noticed about two months agao when i washed it one day that there was an abundance of oil under the truck and down the left side rocker panel. also had noticed a burnt oil smell in the cab after driving a while. started investigating a little bit and have noticed the the crankcase vent has started to blow much more oil and some smoke. the drain tube used to have a little iol on it and the power steering box was a little damp, not much. but know there is wet oil all over the place. the dip stick says it is ok on the oil level. any idead what could have changed to make the vent smoke a little and make much more oil?

 

[DIESELWRKS]

this is JMO but smoking mine will do this when outside temps are colder than the warm air coming out of the vent or on cold start up and some time on hard long grade freeway drives if I pull over. nothing to worrie about. I relocated my breather line down the frame rail to about the t-case area. this is my theory. I have extended the surface that now slowly over time will collect oil that goes out of the breather. doesnt contstantly drip but everyonce and awhile I will have a puke. sorta burp. and I have some oil on the ground. to me this is just build up from the extended line that I added. there are alot of ideas and different ways and opionions on this. from the expensive cummins eviorguard etc. to the cheap and usefull sock method (Gary) to remaking a oil sep trap filter. etc. but if your dipstick isnt showing anything crazy dont worrie about it. I would consider locating it to a different spot if you havent already it just makes a nasty mess over time on the front and under the engine. you said your steering pump also. there is a seal that connects vac/steering pump together this is prone for going out this also will leak engine oil. so just so you dont think that is from the breather could be seperate problem. good luck

 

[Alphacowboy]

mine has done this for 50k miles, maybe even more. Mine vents into the driverside wheel well. I am going to move mine back further though, as inhaling those fumes while sitting at a stop light with my window open sucks! :-laf I know I have two cylinders that are slightly glazed, and I attribute the excess venting to that. i know its not the head, so I am not too worried about it.

 

[KBrennan]

I have 150K miles and mine has been dripping for the last 50K and now it is blowing out a fog. I stuck my head inthere to get a wiff and it does not smell like anitfreze, diesel exhaoust but does have a burnt oil smel. The reaso I went to smell it is I have been loosing about 0. 5 gals of anitfreze every 10K miles. Since it did not smell like anitfreze I figure I now have two problems to solve.

 

[Moe]

If you still have the vent bottle up front then you need to empty it. I took my bottle off and put 8ft of hose on the vent tube. Goes back near the fuel tank. Smokes lightly as it should, since all motors have some blowby especially at 182000 miles. First gens had the crankcase vent come straight down and they puffed and leaked on occasion. Only reason to change was the E. P. A. gestapos. Moe

 

[SHuber]

My 98. 5 has the tube hanging directly over the front pinion input, and it's always a mess. I was considering welding a nipple into my exhaust and plumbing it into that like the racers do, I think the call it an evac kit, on a gasser you would normally put a check valve inline so if it we're to backfire you wouldn't blow all your seals out, but I wouldn't think that would be necesarry on the diesels. Anybody ever heard of this being done on a diesel?

 

[Cummins724]

I have 150K miles and mine has been dripping for the last 50K and now it is blowing out a fog. I stuck my head inthere to get a wiff and it does not smell like anitfreze, diesel exhaoust but does have a burnt oil smel. The reaso I went to smell it is I have been loosing about 0. 5 gals of anitfreze every 10K miles. Since it did not smell like anitfreze I figure I now have two problems to solve.

Sounds like my truck back when my 53 block cracked. I saw no signs of a problem, but kept losing coolant. Then one day, I noticed a white line on my block where the crack was & saw that the antifreeze was burning up as fast as it was coming out. Check your passenger side of your block right above the freeze plugs.

 

[SnoKing]

If you still have the vent bottle up front then you need to empty it. I took my bottle off and put 8ft of hose on the vent tube. Goes back near the fuel tank. Smokes lightly as it should, since all motors have some blowby especially at 182000 miles. First gens had the crankcase vent come straight down and they puffed and leaked on occasion. Only reason to change was the E. P. A. gestapos. Moe

You want to be careful with a hose that long. It can freeze in the winter and you will blow seals in the motor. The condensation from the crank case will ice up that far for the heat of the engine. Wam, seals blow!



SNOKING

 

[Cummins724]

You want to be careful with a hose that long. It can freeze in the winter and you will blow seals in the motor. The condensation from the crank case will ice up that far for the heat of the engine. Wam, seals blow!



SNOKING

There is heat blowing through the tube constantly. I have a breather in my valve cover which has a hose routed into my drivers side frame rail below the drivers floorboard. My plans are to drill a hole on the inside rocker panel on both sides & plumb the hose into there. Self lubricating rust preventer. :-laf

 

[GaryOwen]

Not sure if the vent tube set up is the same as my 03, but it had a leaking hose connection under the plastic valve cover guard that was leaking. I noticed the oil smell when driving, then noticed oil from the valve cover area. Repaired the hose and no more oil smell or oil on the upper engine.

 

[CumminsPower98]

Your catch bottle could be full and overflowing. Fleetguard sells a breather kit for the 24 valves that runs the condensed oil back into the pan. If its not full or there really is excessive amounts of gas venting you might check for a vacuum leak, or the compressor side of the turbo could be leaking and pressurizing the crankcase. Worst case it could be a bad piston/ring or the engine got dusted from bad air filtration but probably not in this case.

I built a system on my '12 valve that works really well. I have absolutely no oil mess on anything under my truck. See my mods page below for details.

SNOKING is very right on the freezing up of a long vent hose.

I had this happen while driving OTR. I drove for a couple days starting with the really cold stuff in MT and up into Canada and then back down into western MN with sub-zero temps one time. I decided to idle this night (One of the few in 2. 5 years of driving) since I had heavier than ideal oil for the temps and it was going to be hitting about -15. I was laying back on my bed watching a movie when I hear the chime go off. I look at the dash and the oil pressure is down but then pops back up. I figured it was just my sender as I have had trouble with this before and had to change it out more than once. Then it did it again but came back up but the last time it stayed down so I jumped up there and shut it down. I pop the hood and see oil mixed with blown snow everywhere on the left side of the engine, top to bottom and running out the fender. Well this pretty much freaked me out. I looked around in the dark but couldn't see where it was coming from so put a couple QTs in and started it. I couldn't see anything leaking but then I noticed the dipstick was out a little and bubbling. First thought was oh no, the turbo has blown or I have a bad piston/rings. After getting past those ideas it hit me as to what it probably was and sure enough the 3/4" vinyl hose I had running down the frame was solid ice. I cut it off at the starter where it was warmer and problem solved. It blew 7 qts of oil out the dipstick tube (luckily I had just enough Amsoil along to fill it up). All this time I'm out there working on it its about -8 with a strong head on wind and blowing snow and I'm laying under the truck in snow and oil trying to cut a rock hard tube! That is one night I will never forget. I'm so glad it waited until I was idling to fully freeze shut or I probably would have blow gaskets out or something. I'm also really thankful I wasn't sleeping or I would have lost the engine had the chime not woke me up.

So, the moral of the story, don't run a long hose when driving in sub-zero temps for extended periods of time as that condensation will freeze.

 

[SKuyper]

If the oil and vapor you are seeing just "suddenly" happened and you see quite a bit of blow by vapor while the engine is running, check to see if it has a slight "timed" puff to it. If so, you might do a compression check on the engine and do a cylinder efficiency test. I had one of our trucks that "suddenly" started putting out quite a bit more vapor and it had a "timed" puff to it. The above test showed compression loss in a cylinder... even though it still ran smooth on all cylinders... I pulled the head and wa la ... scuffed piston and cylinder wall. Rings were coked up as well... truck had 379,000+ miles on it... . and typical ranch maintenance ( nothing but an oil change every two or three years before I hired on )