But I do smell/see burning oil by the rear head near the dipstick.
FYI, that's the forward head.
The outside of your engine would have to be absolutely saturated in oil if it's leaking two quarts in two hours. Oil must be pooling under your car when parked.
It does. But seeing as it's happened so much I can't pinpoint it in my own drive.. I just parked on snow to see and get an idea of where it's coming from. My bottom end is coated.. sadly due to my distrib leaking at the time.
When I left advance (after being there for roughly 10minutes) I noticed a decent pool of oil (After I added some) where I had been parked.
Did you accidently leave on the old oil filter gasket last oil change? Double gasket will leak like a pig --- please don't ask how I know this. If not, get to a friendly repair shop ASAP and get it in the air - could be something as simple as a loose dip stick tube.
I hate to be obvious here but... Wash your engine then look for leaking oil. A mechanic will do the same thing. 2qts per hour is hardly a seeping gasket. You have something major. Broken oil pressure sensor, loose dipstick tube, oil filter problem, front or rear main seal. find the problem ASAP this is not going to fix itself..
I've noticed my Oil pressure bouncing WILDLY at times.
Fiero senders tend to do that. Most likely just a bad sender. Your missing two quarts isn't going to be that easy.
I'll put my money on the dist o-ring even though it doesn't at first appear to be the cause of the oil leakage. Front head in the area nearer the transmission? That's were mine ran off of the engine when my dist o-ring was bad.
[This message has been edited by phonedawgz (edited 02-08-2014).]
+1 on the oil pressure sending unit. The fact that it's bouncing pretty much clinches it. It could be the tube, TFS sells a stainless replacement tube, but the bouncing gauge points to failure of the sender. Best to upgrade to the 88 sender which is better and cheaper and doesn't leak. When mine failed there was a great loss of oil, sometimes lots of smoke, but not that much oil in the engine bay, even though I drove for months like that.
+1 on the oil pressure sending unit. The fact that it's bouncing pretty much clinches it. It could be the tube, TFS sells a stainless replacement tube, but the bouncing gauge points to failure of the sender. Best to upgrade to the 88 sender which is better and cheaper and doesn't leak. When mine failed there was a great loss of oil, sometimes lots of smoke, but not that much oil in the engine bay, even though I drove for months like that.
I'm getting puffs of smoke coming from my passenger side vent. I know that's where the sender is located, how much would it leak? Astronomically if it was broken? It bounced around, A LOT. Not even on bumps, straight roads.
Have you recently done any work to the motor? Like valve cover gaskets? I had the front one not seat well and it was pissing oil like you state.
I recently had the covers off, Yes. I was thinking that exact same thing but was it that bad? Also, it doesn't seem to drain parked. But if I fill it up and drive, nope. It's all gone.
Yup check your gasket I bet it's off like mine was. Use a mirror to look at the gasket you will know when you see it. Mine only leaked when it was running.
Two quarts is an awful lot; I never lost that much that fast. The needle bouncing has to do with the sender grounding out internally - is what I read somewhere on the forum. Is the sender even there? Maybe it's loose. It might pump out a lot of oil if the pipe was leaking or the sender was loose or missing.
Check your dip stick tube!!! I had rebuilt my engine and had it all together and was pissing oil like crazy here when I set the dipstick tube in I didnt push it down into the block and apparently oil pressure popped it out.. after pressurewashing the underside I took a little rtv silicone at the tuve and pushed it into the block let it set 24hrs and didnt leak a drop since. ( I also used a 3.1 tube bc I had a 3.1 block and the pan is deeper. So I didnt have a bracket to mount it to the head)
+1 on that possibility. There is a small screw that holds the top end of the tube in place. This happened to me as well, but the tube came out when I was checking the oil and I didn't drive it before solving the problem.
First car wash and clean. Then refill oil. Then do visual inspection.
2 quarts that soon is something big. The steps above are how to find out what it is in about 5 minutes or less depending how many quarters you use at the car wash.
Friend blew an oil pressure sending unit on his DOHC and emptied the oil pan in about 1/2 - 3/4 mile. I laughed on my way to work because you could see the line he left on the ground. When the engine was not running he couldn't find the leak.
I originally had rubber, but my forward one was split, so I replaced it with extra cork I had. Now I know the the now parted out, soon to be scrapped GT went wrong.. That had cork too. And no oil.
Felpro is nice for the gasket set.. but they should offer Rubber VCG's included in the set for the Fiero.
There is a very lovely channel to place the gaskets into around the perimeter of the valve cover... if they won't stay in as you try to place it, a couple of strategically placed dabs of RTV in said channel should help.
[This message has been edited by carbon (edited 02-11-2014).]