This car has 140,000 miles, but has been well cared for all its life. With normal city driving, no issue, but in the mountains I will see blue smoke on acceleration after a stop. Car runs great. Still using 5W-30 full synthetic oil. Should I consider having the rings changed? If so, any cost estimate? Any other ideas of the problem?
Thanks
Scott

 

I suggest to check fuel pressure drop rate first.
When holding fuel press okay, I would suspect valve seals.
Not common for them to wear out I believe.

Compression tests on XKR usually just cause unneccesary panic in my opinion
good luck

 

It is unusual in today's world to see an engine overhaul including piston rings. Your car probably has Nikasil cylinder linings which are harder and slipperier (sp?) than the cast iron alloy, so that seems like that would be a plus. It would be interesting to hear if there were other XKs out there burning oil. Maybe valve seals ? Blue smoke is usually oil.

 

I've had an oil burning problem that I've previously mentioned on this forum; no solutions to date. When the car sits overnight after a long drive, the next time its started up it blows a fairly heavy cloud of blue smoke for about 10 seconds. After that , if it's there it's not noticeable. I had a valve job done on the engine including guides and seals, cleaned out the mesh in the valve covers, tried the usual snake oil remedies and nothing seems to help. The car runs perfectly otherwise. As you might imagine, it uses a bit of oil. I'm guessing it might have been overheated which could have effected the oil rings.

Bugs the hell out of me and just plain embarrassing.

 

If it did overheat, the nikasil linings may be damaged. Did you inspect them when the heads were off?

 

Is there lots of oil in the elbow below the throttle body?
And if so:
1: Lots of pressure from at crank ventilation?
or
2: Engine block vacuum leak somewhere?

 

There does not seem to be a pressure buildup in the crankcase, nor is there any residual oil in the elbow below the throttle body. Based on what I've read, my car has the Nikasil liners which would certainly be subject to damage from overheating. I would think that if that were the problem, it would be visibly burning oil all of the time, not just for a brief period at startup. Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong about that.

 

A suggestion has been made to first consider Lucas Engine Oil Leak. I had a chat with Lucas who say this product is excellent for valve stem seals. They say 20% Is best, but I am considering 1 quart out of the 7. Thoughts?
Thanks
Scott

 

less is more with these types of products, try 500ml at most

i prefer this