Oil Seperator, Throttle Body, Plugs

[AEman69A]

Ok well my engine warning light has come on and whenever i start my '02 boxster it smokes for about 1 minute. ALOT of smoke. asking around, almost everybody told me it was the oil seperator which was faulty and also to clean the throttle body.

I was wondering if anybody could help me with some diagrams of the location of the oil seperator and/or throttle body. And if i can find them, would i be able to change them myself?

To my knowledge, I would also have to change the plugs and maybe the gasket heads too? This is atleast what i was told when i went to NAAPA.

Thank you, any help would be appreciated.

btw, i had my friend hook it up to a code reader and it just spewed out codes.

they included mass air flow failure, coils, plugs, oil tubing ( ? ), throttle body, and others i cannot remember at the moment. i don't see how this could have happened. i mean 1 day the car is fine and the next all this.

[kamran66]

here is a DIY for the oil separator... just removed mine today will put it back in the A.M....first you need to jack the car and remove the two bolts holding the separator then you must release the lower clamp on the bellow this is kind of tricky because of the tight access..then up on top to undo the two vacuum lines the lower one is a bear..i broke the plastic lock clamp, i will have to improvise something tomorrow. once you release the separator from the top you can pull it up sufficiently to have room to release the lower hose..one important thing the porsche dealer parts guy helped me out by giving me another type of clamps for the bellow, it had a plastic ring locking it open till you were ready to pull them off..this was a life saver..ask the dealer it looks exactly as the original but have a blue plastic retainer.

here is another thread for the separator:

http://www.renntech.org/forums/index.php?s...st=entry14531

here are pics of the seperator thanks to Renee....

http://renee.devetter.home.comcast.net/box...ilsep/index.htm

kamran

[AEman69A]

thx alot for all the info kamran. btw, where did u buy ur oil seperator?

and if i do change the oil seperator, would i also change the plugs? gasket heads?

and was also wondering where the throttle body was incase i mite need to clean that too.

[adsach]

thx alot for all the info kamran. btw, where did u buy ur oil seperator?

and if i do change the oil seperator, would i also change the plugs? gasket heads?

and was also wondering where the throttle body was incase i mite need to clean that too.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

What the guys at NAPA told you would have been good advice for my (long gone) 1973 Buick Century Regal that ran on 3.5 of 8 cylinders. The advice to change plugs and head gaskets probably isn't relevant to your Boxster.

Your head gasket is probably not leaking. Your spark plugs may be a bit gunked up, but fixing the excess oil going into the combustion chamber and driving around for an hour should clean them up pretty good.

You probably have 1 or 2 problems rather than several causing all these codes, so I suggest you fix the known problem and drive it for a couple of days (assuming it drives OK) before dumping the ODBII codes and looking for more problems.

[kamran66]

i bought the oil separator from the dealer..it cost me $85.00...it comes with the infamous collapsing bellow that everyone talks about...btw, my bellow was collapsing due to a bad oil separator..it's basically a vacuum canister with a diaphram on top..my guess is it gets gunked up and fails in the open or closed position and thus lets oil into the intake which in turn makes a cloud of smoke...remember what i said about the clamp with the blue retainer ring..it will save you a lot of trouble installing the oil separator...lastly, you don't need to change the plugs or gaskets or anything, the previous post was correct.

kamran

[AEman69A]

thx alot for the info. ok i got the code readouts.

p1128 - Coolant temperature below thermostat regulating temperature.

p1130 - O2 sensor circuit malfunction ( bank 1, sensor 1 )

p0300 - random/multiple cylinder misfire detected

p0306 - cylinder 6 misfire

p0304 - cylinder 4 misfire

p0305 - cylinder 5 misfire

it seems that that whole side of the bank is messing up ( because of 02 sensor? )

i'm not sure how all this relates to the oil seperator, but thats wut i hear is the most common cause of all the smoke occuring at startup.

Edited October 8, 2005 by AEman69A

[adsach]

...

i'm not sure how all this relates to the oil seperator, but thats wut i hear is the most common cause of all the smoke occuring at startup.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

With a malfunctioning oil seperator, fresh oil running through the intake and semi-combusted oil passing out the exhaust can 'gum up' the innards of your engine - this includes o2 sensors, spark plugs and catalytic converters.

If your engine has more than a puff a day, you probably want to cut back on it's smoking before it leads to premature aging.

[AEman69A]

thx adsach. so the code readout for the O2 sensor can be caused by the oil

seperator? does the oil seperator have its own code?

also, these misfirings would mean that i probably have to change those plugs ( or maybe just all of them at once while i'm down there ) ?

also, wut can i do about the coolant readout? first time i've seen coolant as too low a temperature. the car starts fine ( other than the smoke and uneven idle )

[AEman69A]

i opened up the engine bay and found something interesting. there is a small tube which leads from the back trunk ) around oil dipstick area. it is in the rear, passenger side of the engine bay. this normally is a circular tube. but once i start the car up, it flattens out flat with creases on the side. there also seems to me much more dirt/grime/oil residue over this tube than any other part of the engine.

i took pix and also a video of startup and it flattening. will post these up soon. is this the oil seperator people talk so frequently about?

[ralegen]

Any updates?