Hey guys I got an 02 GT and it's burning lots of oil and I'm not sure what's causing it. I've noticed that it doesn't really smoke till it's warmed up but after it's warmed up it's really obvious. Even if I'm just idling it pours out the back, I get big puffs of blue smoke when I sit at a stop sign or light for a little while and then take off. The car does have 130,000 miles and I have been hard on it a few times but it still runs really well. It doesn't cut out or stutter, just lots of blue smoke after it warms up. Any info would be appreciated!!

 

It is my experience that a broken ring causes smoke pretty much all the time - including at idle.

Whereas bad valve seals don't really smoke at idle or under throttle. What I noticed with my 70's DOHC is that when I would close the throttle and decelerate - like going down a grade - there would not be smoke at first. But when I would open the throttle again I would see smoke burn out for a bit and then stop. It's like the closed throttle creates vacuum in the cylinder that pulls oil by the bad valve seals and accumulates in the upper cylinder. Then when you are under throttle again that burns out and then any leaking is slow enough that you really don't notice any smoke.

But when I broke a ring in my F150, it smoked as you described. It also blew the dipstick up about a half inch from the compression leaking and increasing the blow by to the crankcase.

Time for a compression/leak down test...

 

Thanks for the info I appreciate it! I might check my compression tonight, if it's got good compression the rings are okay right? I don't think there's any way to check my valve seals without takin off a spring and lookin at it.

 

Good compression should mean good rings.
You could pull a cam cover and look for pieces of a valve seal (if they broke apart for some reason), but they could still look fine but leak.
So process of elimination I guess.

 

Okay, thanks again!

 

I got good compression in all cylinders so I bought valve seals and I was going to do the work myself but I decided its best to let this job be somebody else's headache. Hope this fixes it, thanks for the info.

 

Well after going to 4 shops and all of them turning down the job I bought some rope and a spring compressor and changed all of the valve seals myself with the help of my dad. We took our time and did it over the last two days. It was almost dark when I fired her up so I'm still not sure if I've completely fixed the problem yet but I should know after tomorrow, gonna drive it to church in the morning.