Drinking oil

Hi Guys

My recently purchased Disco 2 V8 is drinking loads of oil.

Ive only done about 300 miles in it and when I checked the dipstick this morning it was well below the fill mark.

There is no oil on the driveway and no smoke from the exhaust.

Where on earth could the oil be going?

Much appreciated.

is the back window spotted ? chances are your putting it through the exhaust if you cant see a leak

Hi James

Thanks for your reply.

I'll check the window in the morning. Why would the oil be working its way through the engine?

Main thing you can check, the breather restrictor in the driver's side rocker cover. It's pushed into the pipe where the breather hose goes on top of the rockers cover and gets clogged up.

It's plastic and breaks easily!

The other possible is an over-lean mixture.

Peter

jamesmartin said:

is the back window spotted ? chances are your putting it through the exhaust if you cant see a leak

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Might see smoke at high revs when you floor it if its piston rings?

No spotting on rear window, and very little hardly any smoke at all.

Guess it'll be going back in to get overhauled.

ATD said:

No spotting on rear window, and very little hardly any smoke at all.

Guess it'll be going back in to get overhauled.

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has it just been done or just high mileage

It was skimmed and rebuilt by the Land Rover centre in Otley by the previous owner, but when I called him to day I was having problems he didn't want to know. He'd given the work a 6 month guarantee but it ran out 3 days after I called him.

might want to get bores and rings looked at, if no leaks are apparent

Nice one. Will do.

What's the mileage? I've owned four of these engines in RRC'c (3.5 & 3.9) & never known one to burn oil, even at beyond 150k.

110K. I've noticed blue smoke today. I was idling in town and then I floored it onto the roundabout and got a substantial amount of blue smoke.

ATD said:

110K. I've noticed blue smoke today. I was idling in town and then I floored it onto the roundabout and got a substantial amount of blue smoke.

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H'mm, I'm not really a mechanic but sounds like there's more than just the normal wear 'n tear here, possibly broken ring(s)? I wish you well with it, lovely engines - normally run for ever if well maintained (& don't slip liners!) My previous 3.5 had done over 160k & still had excellent compressions.

Oh yeah, with my luck it'll be knackered. But, I've committed to the LandRover life so she'll be fixed in the new year.

i have had a couple of these motors now and my old one got pretty smoky so i replaced it

this one is put together with new rings so is much better, havent seen any smoke from it but it still gets rid of oil, through the rear main seal mostly, but only when hot

which means that it sits around cool and it doesnt leak but i bet it gets rid of plenty on the road when driving around no doubt

have you looked underneath for oil round the bell housing?

ATD said:

110K. I've noticed blue smoke today. I was idling in town and then I floored it onto the roundabout and got a substantial amount of blue smoke.

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Smoke after warm idling could point to worn valve guides. Not sure if these engines are susceptible to that though.

She's going in on Monday. I'll let everyone know what the diagnosis is.

Happy New Year.

Lets hope the diagnosis is not too wallet-crunching, especially at the start of a new year.

I had a car that use to smoke so my diagnosis was worn piston rings, so off with the head and down with the sump and out with the pistons, replace the rings and put everything back together again. Great no smoke for two months and then it started again.
So I went out and got a recon engine fitted.

And when that was...well

Update:

Garage (who shall remain nameless do now) rang me to tell me there's no issue with the car. He said he's topped the oil up and to check it again in a fortnight. I explained that I wasn't prepared to do that as the car had drank 10 litres of oil in 1500 miles.

His diagnosis is that I now need a replacement engine...