I recently had cracked heads replaced on a 1993 ford ranger. Prior to the replacement, the truck was not burning oil. Now I am losing more oil than gas. About a quart every 100 miles. Mechanic says it must be the rings but it wasn't burning oil prior to his work. Any thoughts.
8 Answers
A leak down test will help you determine if it is rings and/or valve guides.
Do warn rings often show up after replacing the heads? I was told these were new head not rebuilt. The smoke appear on acceleration but there is also a lot of carbon on the tail pipe. Sadly this repair was one far from my home. Prior to having the heads replaced I wasn't burning oil.
When you install new heads the compression may go up and cause problems with the rest of the engine. I suspect you have high miles on the pistons and rings.
No, not necessarily. Worn rings will leak oil with or without new heads, and new heads won't cause rings to start leaking unless they ready to go anyhow. Problem is you don't really know the quality of the workmanship this shop did, or how good these heads are. You can guess at it all day, someone will have to run some tests or pull valve covers and look at it.
A valve job or new heads often times causes a problem with the rings. This has been a common rule of thumb known for decades. Don't forget we are talking about a 24 year old engine.
At this point the engine will need rebuilding or replacing. Inspect the heads to make sure the valve guide seals were installed.
The truck has 130k miles. Sits 95% of the time. Looks like 1800 down the drain. I doubt I'm interested in sinking any more in this. Isn't there any reasonable responsibility for the mechanic doing this job? i.e., wouldn't it have been reasonable for him to have been able to tell whether this was worth doing? New heads, rocker arms, etc.
