HELP! 2.3T suddenly blowing oil bad #3&4!

[Lscman]

Can anyone point me in the right direction?? I don't know much about 2.3T issues......

This '79 turbo motor with 40K original mi was consuming about 1qt/250mi for the last year with minimal blue smoke out the tailpipe. I figured the turbo seals or the valve seals were causing this, as consumption built up slowly over the last 20 years.

Suddenly today, excessive blue smoke and knocking. At steady state cruise, it ran fair. About 1/2 mi from home, it really let loose and monsterous steady white cloud followed me home....stalled pulling into driveway.

I pulled all 4 plugs, very oily and sooted like before, but rear two #3 & 4 much worse. Got my daughter to crank it over and I got hosed by a ton of oil blowing out of #3 and #4 cylinder spark plug holes. The front two appeared almost dry.

Is there an oiling passageway thru the head gasket that let loose in the rear of the head or something? I've never seen a head gasket fail that way. The engine is not misfiring much.

The coolant seems normal and I see NO evidence of coolant coming out of the spark plug hole. This liguid being thrown out of the cylinders is 100% oil.

Any ideas really appreciated. I gotta get my daughter back on the road.

 

[Stinger]

It could be a headgasket issue and the white smoke you said it let out is evidence of that. White smoke is coolant, blue smoke is oil, black is fuel.

A compression check '"may" tell the tale.

 

[Lscman]

It could be a headgasket issue and the white smoke you said it let out is evidence of that. White smoke is coolant, blue smoke is oil, black is fuel.

A compression check '"may" tell the tale.

thnx....

In this case, I'm getting at least a teaspoon of oil sprayed out of the 2 rear cylinders every 5 seconds of cranking. Hold your hand over the spark plug hole and it literally pours off your hand. My passenger fender looks like a can of dirty oil was dumped on it after about 20 seconds of cranking.

There is no coolant coming out. For whatever reason, the color of the smoke changed from blue to white when the cloud got much worse in the last 1/2 mi.

I'm hoping this is a common failure mode for 2.3L-T that somebody saw before. Based upon the massive volume of oil spewed and the fact that #1 & #2 cyl are not spewing,

I doubt if the turbo failed catastrophically because that would seem to throw oil into all 4 cylinders. Turbo was not whining louder than normal either.

Compression check will be done soon, thnx on that.

any ideas appreciated.

 

[ethangsmith]

I would say it is a head gasket issue. If a turbo bearing failed, you would get equal oil out all spark plug holes. The pressure passage for the oil coming up from the pump is at the rear of the block and head. Agreed a compression test should tell the tale. It sounds like the gasket cracked or blew between the cylinders and the oil passage.