I got a 95 Ford Escort wagon by trading a used digital camera. After fixing a bunch of little things and doing an auto-rx cycle, I have a strange problem. The car burned about 2 quarts of oil in 3000 miles, but it gets 39-42 mp on the highway. The oil burning has decreased dramatically with one exception. I was doing some testing on the charging system today and got distracted. The car idled for about forty five minutes before I got back to it. It was puffing clouds of oil smoke out the tailpipe. According to the scanner, the engine did not overheat while i was away. I don't think it's a cracked head. I am leaning towards valve seals. When driving it does not appear to smoke, but now if you sit at idle for a few minutes, you get a blast of smoke out of the tailpipe. I know very little about the 1.9 liter engine other than it is a non-interference engine. What would cause the oil load up when the engine is sitting at idle? Bad oil control rings or valve seals. It doesn't seem to smoke when cold, only warm. Any thoughts woud be appreciated.
I need a Ford Escort Guru
- Thread starter 03cvpi
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Blue smoke? That would be oil. If it is black, could be idling too rich.
Kestas
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Been there. Your pattern of smoking matches that of worn valve guide seals. The valve guides seals leak the most oil under high vacuum conditions, which is idling and stopping at a light. Once you accelerate, this oil gets burned.
Yes, puff of blue smoke after idling at a stop light is a classic sign of worn Valve guides. It may smoke when first cranked in the morning also. Some engines allow you to change the valve guide seals without pulling the heads. Check your manual.
Hope the camera wasn't a Leica. Had the exact car and suffered same symptoms. Good performer, but. Check the posts from years back and possibly do a search using google and Ford and problematic repairs, etc.
Seems there is a "washer" that Ford embossed into the botttom of the head, and if and when it wears loose, you have a dancing metal part in the combustion chamber. Don't know if it relates to the worn valve guide issue, and the blue smoke. Just want you to be aware before you put a lot of dough into something else. If you do pull the head, have the machine shop adddress those "washers", and perhaps both issues can be solved easily and affordably.
Seems there is a "washer" that Ford embossed into the botttom of the head, and if and when it wears loose, you have a dancing metal part in the combustion chamber. Don't know if it relates to the worn valve guide issue, and the blue smoke. Just want you to be aware before you put a lot of dough into something else. If you do pull the head, have the machine shop adddress those "washers", and perhaps both issues can be solved easily and affordably.
Kestas
Staff member
You're probably talking about valve seat inserts that are press-fit into counterbores of all aluminum heads. I can't think of any other "washers" in the combustion chamber. Never heard of them working loose though.
The new 2.0 Zetec is non interference, but I'm not so sure about the 1.9s.
But your engine is worn and had oil control problems.
39-42 MPG is insanely good for that car. Record breaking. Maybe the engine is using the oil as fuel.
But your engine is worn and had oil control problems.
39-42 MPG is insanely good for that car. Record breaking. Maybe the engine is using the oil as fuel.
if i had a '95 escort wagon that got 39-42 mpg, i wouldn't do a thing to it. just drive it and be happy! do you know where i can get one too?
I would like to thank everyone for the replies. Next weekend I'm going to pull the valve cover and replace all the valve seals. It looks like it will cost about 40 bucks for the parts. I traded a Canon A4 digital camera for it. Probably worth about 150 dollars. It needed an exhaust manifold 30 bucks at a junk yard and a tune up and all fluids changed, but on the last trip to the cabin at 55 mph, I got 41.85 miles per gallon. At 65 the mileage drops to about 35 mpg, at 70 it drops to 32 mpg. All city driving it gets 30-32 mpg. I like the car for mileage, but there is a lot of road noise and the ride is a little rough. I've put a little over 9000 miles on it since last September and the only annoying thing this car does is the big puff of oil smoke after sitting a stop light for a minute or two. I think my daughter will get it when I get the oil buring problem fixed. I have my eye on the neighbors 97 escort sedan with 23k on on it. They are retired and have been looking at getting a Prius. Go figure, If I bought a Prius it would take 10-11 years to get my money back on the initial investment, I don't think my neighbors would ever get their invesment back in their lifetimes.
I like trading. Cars for cameras, it's all good. I don't know though, I consider any car that can move on it's own power worth at least $500. Looks like you made out.
Anyway, keep in mind that you need to pull off more than just the valve cover to replace the valve seals. You need to pull the whole cylinder head, which could be a tough job if you're just a shadetree type. Keep in mind you would need special tools to get the valves out of the head as well.
Head work is IMO something best left to the machine shop. They can replace the valve stem seals, clean up the head, and make sure that it's not warped. You'll need a new head gasket for when you put it back together. Don't forget a GOOD torque wrench. Correct cylinder head bolt torque is critical.
Anyway, keep in mind that you need to pull off more than just the valve cover to replace the valve seals. You need to pull the whole cylinder head, which could be a tough job if you're just a shadetree type. Keep in mind you would need special tools to get the valves out of the head as well.
Head work is IMO something best left to the machine shop. They can replace the valve stem seals, clean up the head, and make sure that it's not warped. You'll need a new head gasket for when you put it back together. Don't forget a GOOD torque wrench. Correct cylinder head bolt torque is critical.
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Actually from looking at the engine design, I think I can just crank the engine around to TDC on the cylinder I am working on. Attach an airline to the TDC'd cylinder and remove the rocker arms, Compress the spring, pull the keepers, spring cover and spring and pop out the remains of the valve seal. Replace the seal, reassemble the assembly and rinse and repeat for each cylinder. On this engine the cam goes through the head below the ?lifters? and the rocker arms are attached to the top of the head by a single stud per arm. If I'm wrong. Please let me know. I have never done anything major to a 1.9 except change the timing belt and water pump.
Had a '96 escort wagon 5spd. A/C was useless, and the coolinf fan thermostats never lasted. But it drove well, tracked well (after new struts) and DID get great mpg on casual 60-65mph jaunts. Frankly, I achieved that same low 40's mpg once on I-40 in the mtns of north carolina (From knoxville to Charlotte(?)).
I did the valve seal procedure you describe on a saturn SOHC. You'll see anyway when you have the valve cover off.
My dad had a 93 escort 5 speed wagon that was good for 40 mpg. He junked it when a brake caliper froze up and it needed a muffler. (At least he thinks he junked it; I bet the yard fixed it up and resold it as it was still pretty nice.)
At 170k he had the original clutch and timing belt.
My dad had a 93 escort 5 speed wagon that was good for 40 mpg. He junked it when a brake caliper froze up and it needed a muffler. (At least he thinks he junked it; I bet the yard fixed it up and resold it as it was still pretty nice.)
At 170k he had the original clutch and timing belt.
Please let us know what you did to the engine. Did you have to pull the entire cyl. head to replace the valve stem seals. BTW sometimes they come up with 'upgraded' parts for problems like worn seals. Chevy came out with a seal made out of Vitel or vitron that was longer lasting for their 4.3 V6 engines.
I'm also interested in this thread, cause of my soft spot for Escorts. I personally would have experimented with different weights and brands of oil to lower consumtion. Maybe even (mechanic in a bottle) and making sure the air cleaner and PVC is like new. It does sound like you have a specific problem and I was wondering if you had the same problem before that Auto-X treatment. When my valve cover was removed on my 92 wagon, the cylinder head looked like a shiny new nickle just from frequent oil changes. Mine might have used a quart of 5-30 in 3000 miles. My wagon had 160,000 on it when the transmission melted down.
It had the same problem before the auto-rx treatment. It did get better after the rinse, but the valve seals would not be affected by auto-rx, it works best on rotational seals. So I think there was some coking in the rings.The previous owner would do a yaerly oil change with about 10k of use. When I changed the oil the first time, it came out like 40wt oil even when hot and very black. I use 5w30 Supertech syn in it. It's not rated for 5w20. When I got the car, it burned about a quart every 1k, now it is down to 1 quart every 2k miles. Next Sunday I should get the time to replace the valve seals.
Well I got the valve seals replaced. It was a major pain. It took three different tools to remove the springs & keepers because of head wall clearance. I was amazed at the crud under the valve seal caps. While I was at it I did a compression check and got a little more worried. It was 115-105-130-130 respectivly. I was thinking maybe excessive blow by on cyls 1 & 2. But after getting them installed, smoking dropped to nothing.Put about 100 miles on it for testing and let it idle for 20 minutes, and no smoke. I found that using a compressor to seal the valves on a four cylinder is not a good idea. I moved the head I wanted to work on to TDC and left the plugs in the other three cylinders and blew air into the working cylinder, the engine rotated anyway. Probably because of the leakage in 1 and 2. So all I did was move the working cyl back to TDC and used a magnetic keeper remover tool to pop the springs and I let the valve fall the 1/8 inch.
Instead of using a compressor to keep the valve from dropping You could have gotten a long length of clothsline & stuffed the spark plug hole with the line thus when the valve drops it hits the line keeping the valve up.
I saw the post on using clothsline awhile ago, It probably would not have worked on this engine. The pistons are hemispherical with the valves offset to the right away from the spark plug hole. I probably would have had to rotate the piston away from tdc and then try to work the line down through the deeply recessed spark plug hole and then bring the piston back up to tdc. But it seems to have completly cut the oil burning. I used it for some running this weekend and after nearly 400 miles, the oil level has not dropped at all.
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