PCV Valve?

[OrangeCrush1970]

What exactly does this do and when is it time to replace it? Mine is pretty loud, I thought that my valves / heads were making alot of noise but pulled out the PCV and found that it was making all of the chattering. I'll probably just replace it anyways. $3-4 bucks?

Thanks,
Rob

[joedoozer]

PCV is "positive crankcase ventilation" When the pistons move up and down it creates pressure in the crankcase. This pressure needs to be vented. In the old days they just ran a tube to the ground, called a road draft tube. After a few years they realized its better to stick the fumes back into the intake. Pollution reasons.

The PCV valve should rattle a little when you shake it. When they go bad, they get clogged with sludge. Causing the to stick open or closed. Stuck open can cause you to burn oil. They get clogged faster with gunk and stuff when you drive with your foot to the floor all the time. It was always a quick test to see how someone drives (when buying a used car). A quick look at the air cleaner to see if it is oil soaked (from the PCV being open all the time). Now the hose from the PCV is on the other side of the air filter, so that little check doesn't work anymore.

Hoped that helped. I got a bit off on a tangent.

[Longhorn Man]

it's one of the few smog items that is a very good idea to keep. It sucks the air out of the engine, which in that air is fuel vapor, oil mist, and acidic gasses which contaminate the oil, causing it to break down and not do it's job.

[brad_man_72]

great stuff, gets rid of the blowby pressure, can reduce oil leaks, o yeah, better for the enviroment, but anybody that cares about saving the planet probably doesnt drive one of our trucks

[Longhorn Man]

yeah, they always forget the recycle and reuse part when it comes to there new car huh? I wonder at what point the reduced emissions and better MPG actually overcomes the environmental impact of producing a new car.

[HomerJ]

Originally Posted by Longhorn Man

yeah, they always forget the recycle and reuse part when it comes to there new car huh? I wonder at what point the reduced emissions and better MPG actually overcomes the environmental impact of producing a new car.

I couldn't have said it better myself.....

HomerJ

[mrein3]

Originally Posted by Longhorn Man

yeah, they always forget the recycle and reuse part when it comes to there new car huh? I wonder at what point the reduced emissions and better MPG actually overcomes the environmental impact of producing a new car.

I'll tell you when. I bought a 1994 Escort brand new on Jan. 14th, 1994. 5-speed, AC. It gets 33-35 mpg in the winter, 36-39 in the summer. It has 285,xxx miles on it right now. It started yesterday and today at -16F and hauled my butt to work. It is just about used up.

At today's gas price, $2.999/gallon, if I drove my truck 285,000 miles at its 9.5 mpg I would have burned up 30,000 gallons of gas that would cost me $89,970.

The Escort, using a conservative 33mpg burned 8636.36 gallons of gas over 285,000 miles. At today's price that is $25,900.46 just for gas.

My Escort goes 120,000 miles on the tires. 115,000 miles on the front brakes, 141,500 miles on the rear brakes. I've replaced two alternators and two batteries.

Between the gas and all the big replace items, I'd say a new crapcan ecnobox every 14 years is better on the environment.

Using the truck to Escort comparison just in gas money I've saved $64,069.54. The truck uses up tires more often than every 30,000 miles as I've only had it for that many miles and replaced the tires when I got it and again a year or two ago.

Our trucks are a horrible thing to use when argueing recycling a crapcan ecnobox is worse on the environment.

If you're still hanging on to this post after all that math, look at it this way. If you drive your truck every day, and have the opportunity to get a small, crapcan that gets 33 mpg, and you drive 20,xxx miles a year like I do, you'd use 1526 LESS gallons of gas a year. That is $4576.47 in your pocket in just gas money savings.

Further if everybody in this country reduced their gas consumption by 1500 gallons EACH, the Saudi's would be out of business (here anyways), these ethanol idiots would go away, crop prices would get back to normal, the farmer's wouldn't have to pay so much for rent, and just about everything would come back down in price.

[OrangeCrush1970]

Originally Posted by joedoozer

PCV is "positive crankcase ventilation" When the pistons move up and down it creates pressure in the crankcase. This pressure needs to be vented. In the old days they just ran a tube to the ground, called a road draft tube. After a few years they realized its better to stick the fumes back into the intake. Pollution reasons.

The PCV valve should rattle a little when you shake it. When they go bad, they get clogged with sludge. Causing the to stick open or closed. Stuck open can cause you to burn oil. They get clogged faster with gunk and stuff when you drive with your foot to the floor all the time. It was always a quick test to see how someone drives (when buying a used car). A quick look at the air cleaner to see if it is oil soaked (from the PCV being open all the time). Now the hose from the PCV is on the other side of the air filter, so that little check doesn't work anymore.

Hoped that helped. I got a bit off on a tangent.

Wow. I think we are all a little bit smarter today after reading this! Thanks for the information, it's exactly what I was looking for. On top of that, my truck has been burning oil! After reading your email last night I went directly to autozone and picked up a new one for the sweet price of $2.55. That's the cheapest trip to the auto parts store that I have ever had...

Thanks for all the great information folks!

[joedoozer]

You can use some carb/brake cleaner and spray it out every few months. Just put your finger over the hose end of it and fill it with carb spray. Then your thumb over the other end and shake it. Lather, rinse, repeat.....until it rattles again. I try and do it every oil change, only takes a few seconds.

[OrangeCrush1970]

Originally Posted by joedoozer

You can use some carb/brake cleaner and spray it out every few months. Just put your finger over the hose end of it and fill it with carb spray. Then your thumb over the other end and shake it. Lather, rinse, repeat.....until it rattles again. I try and do it every oil change, only takes a few seconds.

10-4, that's a great idea. Thanks-

[Longhorn Man]

mrein3... I understand and pretty much agree with everything you said... but you left out the part about the energy to takes to PRODUCE said Escort.
And one thing you mentioned on your truck... if you aren't getting 30K out of your tires (burn outs not included) then something is desperately wrong with your truck, or the tires you are buying.
One of the things I have done to 'help the environment' is I REFUSE to commute. In my personal opinion... which it is nothing but that... my opinion... there should be no reason to commute more than 10 miles to work. I'm usually more in the 10,000 mile a year catagory myself.

[OrangeCrush1970]

Im on the 'lucky' end of that spectrum. My office is 6 miles from the house.

[Longhorn Man]

same here... 6 miles to the shop

[HomerJ]

I'm just 35 miles out.....

My wife and I work at the same place and generally carpool - in a 30'ish MPG Camry. The old one has 270,000 miles on it - and seems like it could probably go that many more.

I still ask the same question as LonghornMan - how much energy does it take to produce any given vehicle? Taken to the extreme (as I like to do), how many people drove how many vehicles to and from every point in the manufacture of the vehicle? Including miners to get the steel, aluminum, lead, copper, etc. Let's not forget the mine-working equipment, oil drilling equipment, manufacture of all outsourced components that every auto maker uses. What about the Hybrid technology and what the manufacturing of the batteries used in them does to the environment?

On the other hand, recycling or re-using old vehicles such as ours is not environmentally "free", either. Many of us transplant new parts in our old trucks to increase peformance, provide creature comforts like A/C, electric windows, etc. Of course, let's not forget about paint. These things are equally as costly, environmentally speaking, as the equivalent things when put into the manufacture of new vehicles.

In all of this, I'm not trying to say that I think it's better to drive a gas-guzzling behemoth in the name of recycling. I'm certainly not disputing mrein3's fine math demonstration, either (really - that was nice and thorough). I just wonder when ALL things are considered, just how big a difference in environmental impact there is between driving my old truck - properly tuned and maintained - and buying something newer that sucks less gas and spews less junk out the tailpipe.

Finally (no, really, I'm almost done), if we were all to dump our gas-hungry old vehicles in favor of newer crapcans that get better gas mileage, we woudln't likely be doing the environment a big favor. Unless the vehicle we phased out in favor of more environmentally-friendly newer models is completely destroyed, those old vehicles would find their way to "developing" nations, where their impact would be moved to. Granted, the direct impact would not be here at home any longer, but overall, the impact is still being made.

HomerJ