87 Tercel burning oil

[tercelator]

Hi everyone. I'm new to the Forum and thought it's cool to talk to the commune of Tercel drivers. I have a 1987 Toyota Tercel DX, automatic, carb. 108k miles on it, I've had it for 6 years now and riding well. Since last oil change about 2 months ago, I noticed it starting to blow out some blue colored smoke out of the exhaust. Occasionally I'd see a little white smoke, this grabbed my attention since it just recently started doing this. Mostly the car is used for short trips under 35mph in the city. But when I took a trip on the highway to Chinatown, on the way back the car was really letting out this smoke pretty bad. I have 3 things I can think of that are causing this...
1: 5w-30 I normally use, if they used the incorrect oil would this be the problem?
2: Over filled the engine with too much oil.
3: Is the head-gasket starting to go?

Any suggestions and help is appreciated. Thanks everyone.
-Steve

[Gottolovem]

Valve guides could be sticky i would try some seafoam additive.
Easy to check the oil level.
108k is low miles compression should be ok unless there really hard miles.
often when the head gasket starts to go it will overheat first blowing bubbles into the rad and pushing out the coolant."not always"
If oil is getting around the rings thicker oil will help.

I would start with seefoam and thicker oil
good luck

[Petros]

Welcome to the forum!

not likely you would get blue smoke from a bad head gasket, you would be using a lot coolant and get white smoke (steam), with no oil consumption. that low of miles means the engine has been not getting a lot of use, mostly likely cause is build-up on the rings and/or valve stem seals. The sea-foam treatment to the crankas should help, there are also oil additives that will soften the valve stem seals to they work better (when the seals get old they get brittle and do not work as well). The valve stem seals can be replaced without removing the engine, it is only about $20 worth of parts, but it is not a job for someone inexperienced with working on engines, you can cause serious damage if it gets messed up.

It is possible, if the oil was not changed frequently enough, that the rings and cylinders are worn out. But that is difficult to beleive with only 100k miles on it, no matter if it was abused or not.

Try the oil datives first. Put in, run it per the instructions, than drain it out and put in the correct weight oil, with the seal conditioner (most of the "mile milage" oils they sell have seal softeners already in it). Also, you might go to a higher viscosity oil, the owner's manual recommends 20w-50 weight oil if driving in over 75 degrees F. I put that in my daughter's car, who lives in HOT! Texas, and it does not burn any oil at all during the summer. 5w-30 would be fine for winter, but not in the heat of summer. the engine was not designed for the lower viscosity oils they use on the newer cars now.

good luck.