2011 RXT IS burning oil -

[mlgarner]

First off thanks to all who post on the forum, the help and experience given to others has helped me time and time again. PROBLEM - My 2011 RXT has 31 hours and is garage kept I am the second owner. when I start it up white smoke pours out but will steadily reduce down to what may just be steam but at first it smells of oil and my number 3 plug is black while the other two are light grey. I have not ridden enough this year to see how much oil is lost but performance seems to be fine. what I have done to correct: thanks to some insight from Jerry on SCers and rebuild frequency I thought I was on the right path and had a leaking SCer oil seal. well I pulled the tube from the SCer to the throttle body and found no oil to speak of - next I proceeded to check compression on each cylinder thinking bad rings well all three are running about 135 psi with max reading being reached by third cycle, checked 3 times each cylinder with throttle wide open. Since it was time for a Scer rebuild I went ahead and rebuilt it, then thinking it was a valve stem seal I replaced all 12 seals - why not already had the deck off. well put it all back together fired it up and it smoked like crazy then went away mostly - so I am thinking awesome fixed - well went to the lake last Sunday to play for a bit and when I started it prior to leaving it again smoked like crazy but I took it anyway to see how it performed. water was too rough to go WOT but the places I could goose it all seemed fine. Brought it home and fired it up to flush and again smoked like crazy. so figured it was time to do a leak down test, picked up a tester and ran ski a couple minutes to warm it up then put the tester on it - just under 10% leak down on cylinder 3 (suspect cylinder) I did hear air leaking into crankcase but I also could see smoke flowing from the exhaust (left from being run prior).

could it be valve guides on exhaust side - will it leak oil into cylinder even with new valve stem seals?

looking for guidance from the gurus here.

[tornado34]

If piston rings have been out or changed, maybe they're in upside down? or ring gaps in wrong place?

[mlgarner]

No I have not had the engine apart except the valve cover to replace the valve stem seals.

[tornado34]

Excuse me if I'm telling you something you already know. I'm guessing you pressurised the cyclinders to remove keepers retainers n springs to pull out seals. Did you make sure the valve seals bottomed out? Did you lubricate the valves stems before sliding on the seals? Wondering if the seals became damaged if they didn't slide over the top edge and down the stems smoothly.

[mlgarner]

yes I did all that and I am pretty sure I pushed the seals on and the bottomed out - odd thing is appears to be the same cylinder so that is why I am wondering bad valve or valve guide - maybe an exhaust valve is not sealing and oil is getting drawn in during the piston down stroke - I am lost at this point and really don't relish the thought of just tearing into the motor to see what I can find.

[800AMSOIL4U]

Try a leak down test.

[mlgarner]

I did see end of original post - "just under 10% leak down on cylinder 3 (suspect cylinder) I did hear air leaking into crankcase but I also could see smoke flowing from the exhaust (left from being run prior)."

[800AMSOIL4U]

I did see end of original post - "just under 10% leak down on cylinder 3 (suspect cylinder) I did hear air leaking into crankcase but I also could see smoke flowing from the exhaust (left from being run prior)."

Sorry I missed that. Sounds like it is leaking out the exhaust valve. How are the other 2 cylinder?

[mlgarner]

with it being an IS ski I couldn't get to the SC to rotate the engine - I am hoping to check it this weekend when I have time to get in and find a way to rotate cylinder 1 and 2 to test.