Reconditioned VN 3800 - recommendations

[losh1971]

That's a lot of oil usage. Has it been like that since the rebuild?

Maybe the rings didn't seat properly? If so a hone and set of rings should fix it.

This ^^^^ . If the rings weren't set during the first drive this can happen. Also lot of short runs and no decent trips can cause glazing, which can cause oil burning. These engines will do 450k and not burn oil if looked after. Even if it was second hand I would think it would have to be in pretty poor shape to burn that much oil as you mentioned.

 

[Trevor loves holden.]

Yip first 200k's should be moderate load with some mineral based oil then change it out and put a good oil in it, key is don't let it idle for to long as you only have a small window to bed them in, moderate load for those first 200k's is the key to a long motor life, don't go extreme either until you get to the bench mark. What happens with moderate loads, is that combustion pressure gets behind those rings, and pushes them out against the fresh hone pattern, if you let it idol and baby it to much then you will remove the hone pattern without getting the pressure needed to correctly bed them in so be careful u only get one shot at it.

 

[Trevor loves holden.]

lot of short runs and no decent trips can cause glazing

Didn't know it was a diesel, well then that changers things.

 

[vc commodore]

Didn't know it was a diesel, well then that changers things.

Petrol engines do glaze the bores, if they aren't given a decent long run every now and then.....

 

[Trevor loves holden.]

Petrol engines do glaze the bores, if they aren't given a decent long run every now and then.....

Lol, long run does nothing only puts miles on your dial, hard work out like towing or giving it some rpms but even then its not going to fix the worn rings.

 

[Trevor loves holden.]

Glazing is manly a diesel term you don't hear about it in petrol engines. Sorry for being a smartass just see the humour in it.

 

[losh1971]

Man, who in the hell taught you to spell Trevor? It makes it hard to understand what you are saying when in every post you make a number of spelling errors.

 

[Trevor loves holden.]

Man, who in the hell taught you to spell Trevor? It makes it hard to understand what you are saying when in every post you make a number of spelling errors.

Never been good at it, more hands on than reading and written, I just trust spell check. I was one of those the school system failed, they only looked after the smart ones, they put me in repeat classes but I stayed in the year level, once I got to year 11 I missed a year as I was still doing year 9 so they screwed me over, in my mind it looks right sorry if I hurt your brain.

 

[Immortality]

I bet this thing comes in under 1000kg fully loaded so it's not going to work the V6 hard (until it is towing the van) so glazed bores is a good bet. Maybe the new motor needs to be run in towing to get enough load to seat the rings properly using a run in oil.

 

[MikeC]

I still wouldn't do anything without a compression test first. If the bores are glazed or the rings worn the dry compression readings will be a lot less than the wet- maybe more than 25 % less.