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Problems/Service/RepairsIf you have a problem with your HHR, want a tip on repairing or performing a particular service to you HHR here is the place to post!
To clear that oil from the valve cover, I removed the cover and soaked it over night in Dawn dishwashing detergent and hot water, rinsed it out and let dry for a day, oil consumption problems solved!
Maybe you are talking about the small spot of dirt on the end of the spark plug? I don't believe there was any sludge on them, they all looked pretty clean to me.
Originally Posted by Oldblue
To clear that oil from the valve cover, I removed the cover and soaked it over night in Dawn dishwashing detergent and hot water, rinsed it out and let dry for a day, oil consumption problems solved!
I'm guessing you mean the oil coming from the PCV hose means that there is oil all on the valve cover, so cleaning the valve cover may fix that issue? I have a spare valve cover gasket laying around so I might do that. When I last had it off, I spent a while trying to clean off sludge that was on the valve cover with some engine degreaser.
That will clean also, but the dish soap and water covered the entire valve cover. I washed out the hose and elbow also, then cleaned the throttle body.
To clear that oil from the valve cover, I removed the cover and soaked it over night in Dawn dishwashing detergent and hot water, rinsed it out and let dry for a day, oil consumption problems solved!
Why did that fix the oil consumption problem? It doesn't seem like it would.
What ever device in the valve cover was getting oil to it, sludge build up? Not sure, there are how to threads in the Cobalt site , drilling out the shield rivets and such. I think oil flows down over the tray and some goes into that tube then gets inhaled by the throttle body.
I can confirm I don’t have that issue in my 2011 2.4 , and the 2.2 in Oldblue cleared up, and stayed cleared.
According to this: https://www.ratwell.com/technical/OilsWithZinc.html 1400 ppm is in the "normal" range of zinc, meaning 700ppm is low. What I was warning against is the very high content oils like diesel oils and "High Performance" and "classic Car" etc. But, burning oil is always bad for the cat.
Yeah, you’re right, no good definition of a heavy metal, but in most contexts zinc is one.I’m used to thinking about heavy metals in the context of water quality, and in that context there are few worries about zinc.
Interesting how much zinc there is in some oil. Even 700 ppm seems like a lot, but I have no frame of reference. Now I want to make sure the oil I use doesn’t have much zinc. I had wondered if diesel lube would be good, but I wonder no more. But some diesels have cats. What about those?
I think it's just carbon on it, the lighting just makes it look like sludge. These also are the same spark plugs from when I was running rich about a year ago because I used aftermarket injectors. They were brand new when it was running rich. It wasn't really driven that much when it ran rich.
Okay, I got the time today to take the valve cover off, and I'm not sure if this is that bad, but it's very similar to how it looked when I put it back on a year ago. I lost about half a quart of oil in 2 days this week, around 40 miles driven
I took a picture of the PCV hose end at the valve cover and the intake elbow showing the oil along with the throttle body that I just cleaned a few weeks ago.
I have the valve cover soaking in dish soap and water right now, and hopefully, that will fix the issue.
I don't have new grommets for the bolts for the valve cover. Will it be fine if I reuse them?
