Oil in Air Filter Canister

[Woody3]

Hi,

I brought a Land Rover Defender 90 (1989)2.5TD a few Months back.

Everything as been going fine, until I did a service (noticed a bit of blue smoke coming out of the exhaust every so often).

Anyways, I opened the air filter canister and found oil in there. Now to me oil shouldn't be in my air filter. I noticed I have a breather pipe running from the oil filler cap to the canister. This seems to be where the oil is coming from. I cleaned it all up and put a new air filter in (this in turn stopped the smoke...for a bit).

However, today I checked the air filter again (due to me noticing smoke again), and the oil as returned to the air filter canister!

Is my engine on its way out?...Why does the breather pipe go to my air filter? Can't I use something like this instead of connecting it straight to the canister? http://www.roadraceengineering.com/instructions/br...

Any help much appreciated!

Thanks

[GreenV8S]

It's very common to take the breather outlet to the engine intake, so that any oil fumes get burnt instead of leaking out to the environment. Nothing to worry about unless the oil consumption is excessive.

[CHURCH]

The engine in your 90 is famous for having its fair share of problems so the symptoms you describe of blue smoke and engine breathing oil are not uncommon. Really it depends on how much oil is being vented into the air-filter - I've seen ones where the filter is literally saturated in oil but if its just a misting or very small amount in the canister then could be acceptable. Another way to see how tired your engine is when the engine is warm and keep it running remove the oil filler from the top of the rocker cover and see how much oil is being vented out, due to the old design of the engine it'll breathe slightly but shouldn't plaster your face in oil when you remove it! Another simple diagnosis is if it starts up from cold without turning over for ages (assuming your glow plugs are working) then you have decent engine compression so the block should be in good shape and I wouldn't worry to much.

Obviously you don't want a clogged up oil filter though so consider either removing the breather pipe and just let it vent - downside to this is your engine bay will be plastered with oil eventually and also is likely to smell inside. Or route the pipe down to the chassis and help rustproofing!

[l90dave]

You need to fit a V8 Mate!

Are you going to try and move the breather pipe! Let me know when you do, i'll come round and have look with you!