Vent Tube
 

How much oil should be comming out of that tube? The bottom of my truck is very wet, but there is not any decreases of oil on the dipstick. Now that winter is comming and I am in the salt belt I don't mind the oil to keep the salt off the bottome of the truck. I am just curious about the normal volume of oil that should be comming out and whether it is something that should be looked into further.

the oil that comes out of the breather should be a vapor. if enough vapor comes out it will condense back into oil. if there is a noticeable amount you could have an oil leak. my truck leaked oil since it was new, everyone dismissed it as normal blowby until it started losing a gallon a day to a cracked valve cover and cam bushings. ended up getting a new block. worse case scenario, but since the new block my garage floor is dry.

The truck is going in tomorrow for service. When I called the dealership and told the service guy the symptoms he insisted the truck come in ASAP. He said it was very serious. I also called the local Cummins serrvice outlet and spoke with one of the service guys there. He said it was very serious as well :confused: . Something about compression gasses pushing oil through the breather tube. I hope everything will be OK. The dealership assured me everything will be covered under the 100,000 mile engine warranty. I'll keep you all posted as more details become available. I am just warried they might want to give me a rbuild engine or try to rebuild mine. I only have 75,000 miles on the truck.

i have never heard of one of our engines being swapped out for a reman. they replaced my block with a new one. either way i hope its not that serious. you're 100% sure its coming from the breather and not an oil leak elsewhere?

100% sure. In fact about a month ago they replaced the front engine cover gasket as it was leaking. Now the breather is leaking. I have been checking underneath. It is the breather for sure.

Well I picked up the truck from the dealer on Friday. They determined there was too much oil in it so they drained some and washed the bottom of the truck told me to keep a watch on it. Right now it is Sunday morning. I drove a whopping 100 miles and the bottom of the truck is covered with oil. The dealer said that if the dripping continues from the breather tube they will have to do a wet and dry compression test [eyecrazy] . The service manager already contacted DC and thats what they told him to do. Does any one know what a wet compression test is? Should I start to worry?

Wet is adding oil into the cyl.to seal rings.(a prescriped amount)Wet and dry will show differant compression readings.ALSO there is a recent post on a truck with less then 5k on it I believe with a REMAN installed under warranty!!!!! Cummin DOES supply remans for WARRANTY!!!! Eaither this site or TDR.Just in the last month.Long thread.A friend of mines 03 at 95k or so started leaving fair size amounts of oil when parked and all over pan etc.Just a LONG time buildup of vapor/oil residue from vent.Kinda cleaned vent system(full of old oil)and it went back to normal stuff.Now has 110k and no differant then when it had 10k on it.

What is a REMAN?

I think mine just started leaking. I noticed that my fender well on the driver side are wet with oil, from the out side to about 6" in. The is very minimal oil spots under the rest of the truck. Is this what it looks like when it leaks?

Let's explore the options. My truck now has 16K on it and my problem just started. I just changed the oil and filter, could the filter have a higher friction loss factor creating more of a restriction, forcing oil out of the breather? My truck is stock other than the modified cam sensor which I installed just before the oil change, could a slight timing change force oil out?

No there are drips of oil from the front diff, the driverside wheel well is wet with oil, the tranny and tcase has actual oil drops hangin from them. the front bottom of the truck is soaked like driving through a deep puddle. There are no other leaks on the truck. The bottom has been washed and within 100 miles it is starting to look very wet. Also the dealer drained an extra 1.5 quarts of oil that they said was too much that was on Friday. When I checked the oil this morning it is again too much. I just changed the oil on Wednesday. I can still count to 12 [eyecrazy] . The oil looks just loke I poured it in. Does not smell like diesel nor is it discoloured in any way.

My understanding of the breather tube is that there should be nothing or almost nothing coming out of it. Even the Russian Ladas had breather tubes. You could dump in 2 time the required oil into it on an oil change and still nothing would come out of the breather, but as soon as there was any blow by, you had to squeege the bottom of the car. Ladas were POS, but the principle of a breather is the same regarfless of the vehicle, is it not?

If you are loosing oil due to compression you have a problem. I had a 400SB chevy that huffed less oil than you that had 2 cracked pistons in it! The compression thing really bothers me. A dry test is what you normally do to see the ring seal of the motor is good. If a cylander is low then you add oil to see if it will come up. I dont know why they would want a wet test done to all the cylanders. Ask the tech for the numbers. Usually they will all be close and anything past 15% (on a gas motor) variance is considered a bad cylander. Compression preasure in the crankcase could be caused by bad rings, cylander wall wear, a blown head gasket, or something cracked. The mysterious oil level rise tells me that you are getting fuel in the oil even though you dont smell diesel in the oil. A leaky injector could cause this. If you remove the radiator cap with the motor running can you see bubbles? If so something cracked or the head gasket let go. I am going to guess a blown head gasket is your cause.

Sounds like a injector issue to me.Only way to MAKE more oil. The question on REMAN engines.Lets do this the easy way.First REBUILT and REMAN are TWO differant terms and TWO differant things.Look UP REMAN engines etc.on a webb search.Look UP JASPER REMANS for a example or EVEN REMAN transmissions.After reading adds etc.you will understand.Of course it will be REMANUFACTURED Engines or transmissions etc.REBUILD is a VERY short version of reman. Also look up defination in the DICTIONIAY of BOTH.

I agree with hounddog, there is nothing wrong with reman. Reman is essentially new. Rebuild however...not nearly as good. I don't really agree with the headgskt call either as if you have coolant and oil mixing it usually turns the oil very ugly...I term it a baby s**t generator as the ned products looks like a very groos chacolate milkshake or gross baby sh*t. Fuel on hte other hand will mix very well and may not be able to tell easily...also if fuel is going into the crank it will overfill it and could cause it to start coming out the breather.

I agree that a leaking injector can add fuel to the oil but where is the compression coming from? Depending how the head gasket lets go it can pump fuel and air into the oil without ever getting into the cooling system. There is more preasure in the cylander than the oil system. I would think if he had a leaking injector or a bad ring he would also be mentioning a constant smoking out the tail pipe instaed of the vent tube.

The only time I've ever had oil blowing out of an engine was due to an over pressurized crank case condition; in my case (a gasser V8) it was caused by a clogged PCV valve. I dunno, do our Cummins have anything similar, or just the vent?

It sounds to me like Redneck1's engine also has too much pressure in the crankcase, possibly caused by excessive blowby. And the pressure will relieve itself in the easiest manner - out the tube, or a weak gasket. A leaky injector will fill the crankcase and dilute the cc oil; a leaky headgasket will pressurize the coolant system and probably turn the cc oil milky brown. Been down that road before with leaky injectors and headgaskets.

I would think that the wet/dry compression check would be very useful in troubleshooting this problem. Too bad they didn't do that when it was in for the front engine gasket replacement - fixing the gasket may be like treating the symptom and not the illness.

Let us know how it goes.

Well I took her for a 50 mile trip. I checked the radiator when running and no bubbles came up. During my trip I made 3 short (5min max) stops. After each stop I noticed some oil being deposited on the asphalt, about the size of a CD. Also, when I picked up the truck from the dealership on Friday, they drained the oil back down to normal level and put a paint mark on where it was. Now the oil is almost at the dealr mark. That would mean that in 150 miles I gained over a quart of oil on the DS. The oil has no unusual smell or colour. The truck does not smoke other than black when I dump it. It starts very well (it was 32 this morning) and idles smooth. No unusual readings on boost or EGT. The service manager told me to bring it back as soon as any of my symptoms reappeared. So it is going in first thing Tuesday morning (it is thanks giving in Canada this Monday). By the help. Thanks and input is fantastic.

There have been some posts with nothing mentioned about smoke but undercarriage soaked in oil.Bad injector.Few burned through pistons with no smoke mentioned.Also there WAS posts about it NOT being a injector but pump/tube releated.Somethings come by me before about that.BUT it was FUEL in crankcase.

Hey RN1, I'd take an oil sample before you drop it off at the dealer - even if its in a clean glass jar for the moment. Then get an analysis done on it before the dealer drains it all down into the dirty oil waste tank ("oil? what oil? We don't have your stinking oil....").

Who knows, it may be the best $20 US you ever spent. You'll know for certain if there's fuel oil or antifreeze etc in the oil - so will the dealer.

An oil sample would definitly be a great idea. I know what you guys are saying about blow by and headgskt issues however he is also complaining about the oil level rising dramatically...for a head gskt to do this it would require mainly coolant which will cause gross milky oil, excessive pressure will not make the oil level go up but usually rather make it low as it is pushing out oil that shouldn't be. Bad blow by could also add some fuel but would likely still spew out more oil than it would gain. Redneck1 has specifically stated that the oil is 1.5 quarts overfilled and after draining it has become overfilled again( another quart in 150 miles?!!?). With no milky oil this means likely no coolant (no blown head gskt into coolant passage) if the gskt was blown only on the compression side it is more likely that compression would leak into the crankcase/oiling system and blow out the vent tube causing low oil level, the fuel charge would likely still partially burn in the affected cylinder which should not cause a rapid oil level increase from fuel dilution (yes it could still add fuel but shouldn't do it at this rapid of a rate). A cracked piston or piston with hole will again likely cause excessive pressure and just cause oil to come out the vent tube meaning low oil level. I still think an injector is most likely as it is the only real possibility that will cause the oil level to rise significantly without causing the oil to become too discoloured. It may even be hard to tell it is diesel saturated as diesel is also oil and will mix pretty well with normal oil, it may be thinner or have a bit of a smell but it may also be a little difficult to tell. A compression test may or may not be worthwhile. If all cylinders are showing good than where is the extra oil coming from, if one or more cylinders are bad it could still be from a leaking injector causing fuel wash out of the sealing propeties of those cyliders. Low cyliders could be potentially diagnosed with a leak down test but again is it bad gskt, cracked piston or fuel wash out from a bad injector, yes there are ways to tell but the difference between issues for blowby are hard to tell. Likely with as much overfill of oil hte culprit is probably a bad injector. An oil sample would reveal it very quickly and may also provide a bit of a case if the dealer gets weird about it. Blackstone labs is one company that does oil analysis and I am sure there are others as well, it only costs approx $20 and could provide the relief you need. Below is the link for the free test kit.

http://www.blackstone-labs.com/free_test_kit.html

I just got home from the dealership. Now, this morning my oil level was normal (that is weird because the day before there was too much). When I got to the dealership they checked the oil level several times and put a few miles on the truck in between. The oil level remained normal. We agreed to monitor the situation as it appears to have stopped. I did take a sample of my oil to get it tested just to make sure. Now for the breather valve. After the dealer cleaned the underneath of my truck on Friday, it continued on leaking. Today they replaced the pinion seal on the front diff. It is possible that might have cured the problem as I did 100 mile since I picked up the truck and the bottom is as dry as my beer bottle right now. I read a post on this site about some one having the very same problem, first thinking it was the breather and then turning out to be the pinion seal. I don't know if that seal is covered by the 100,000 mile warranty, but the dealership did not charge me a penny. And they rewashed the bottom of the truck again. I will keep monitoring the oil level rise and the vent tube, but I have to say that this is the beast information site there is. The amount of information provided here really gave me the heads up of the worse and the best case scenario. The best part is that the outcome was something that I have already read on this website proving that wwhen you get enough interested people involved in a problem, the solution arrived at is not only the best one but the right one. Thanks.

Now if we could only get our politicians to approch problem solving in the same manner? [eyecrazy]

that seal is powertrain. 7/70 warranty

My truck has 124,000km, so that is 77,500 miles. I wander why they did not charge me?

I don't think more restriction in your oil filter would cause increased crankcase pressures and subsequent oil blowing by the rings. In addition, most engines that have excessive blowby will start to misfire as well as smoke (blueish).

It is very important to work the engine hard to push the ring into the cylinder wall (seating) when its new. If you don't you'll "glaze" the cylinder wall and the ring won't seal very well against it, thereby causing increased blowby.

Let us know how it goes when you go back to the dealer because its still dripping oil.

very much true, but if you follow the owners manual, you will glaze liner.. waiting 500 miles or so before working the engine hard is not good for the engine break in, but it is for the transmission and differential break in. best way to break in an engine is on a dyno, get it up to temp, then 15-20min load [making rated hp varing engine rpm within the torque rise]

There is still no dripping and the oil level is good. As for breakin when new I tried pushing it as much as I could, but at 15,000 mile I drove accross Canada 3 times with a 16' trailer. Wander if that was too late.

It sounds like hopefully you got the issue resolved with the diff seal...that is good news!

not really.. if you do baby it around early and glaze the liner and rings, it really only is a temporarly situation.. if you drive it hard, they will eventually break in properly [glaze wears off] but it takes time. if you don't drive it hard or make the engine work, it can take the 20,000 miles people talk about to break in. the way i drive my truck, my engine was well on its way to being broken in at 1000km [laugh]

my vent tube has been pushing oil out of it since i bought the truck, always been told it was normal. To me the air oil seperator should be keeping the oil inside of the engine. My truck has oil all over the underside of the engine and tranny all the time.
i had always thought that to much oil out of the ven tube was bad, what is to much oil.

Not what i expected from a new truck when i bought it.

redneck1------ If your putting in 12 litres that might be a little too much, it takes quite a while for the oil to drain down into the pan on these engines. When i change oil i stop filling when the oil is about halfway on the hash marks on the stick, after a couple of hours it will be at, or very close to the full line and i will top up if needed, but i can never get the whole 12 litres in. But i don't think this would cause the problems you are having, even if overfilled a little bit.


rob

Ya see there's that metric crap again (hate it always will), 12 litres :confused: . Try 12 U.S. quarts and it comes up to the full mark on a cold engine. I've got a plastic jug from Wally world marked in metric/US and 12 litres is too much. That is why it is pucking out your vent tube. I agree that on our engines the oil takes a long time to settle/drain in the pan after 7 going on eight changes. Hell what's a little blow by better than a EGR or the bottle Cummins used to hang off the tube(plugs,clogs, forget to clean etc.)