Hi, my Pinto 2.0i started to sometimes spray oil through the dipstick. What can be the cause of this and how can I solve it?
I measured the compression and all 4 cyls give about 155. The spark plug of cyl 2 is black and 'oily'. Could this be related to the problem?
tia

likely to be a crank case breather problem.

Just got my Pinto stripped down for virtually the same problem, black sooty plugs, chuffing out of the catch tank, black smoke from the exhaust.
Rings were tatered, build up of carbon behind the rings in the piston grooves had to be seen to be believed.
May be terminal but got the bits so hopefully rebuilding it this weekend. Either way got a Zetec to drop in at a later stage anyroad which was loads cheaper than a rebore new valve guides and seats etc etc.
Cheers,
Bob

what have you got on it in the way of a breather ?

Have you got a standard carb on it? The breather on the pinto works on a vacuum valve that is opened by the vacuum from the standard inlet manifold. If you have swapped for bike carbs or tb's then the valve won't be opening causing crank case pressure to build up and come out of the dipstick. I had this on mine. I removed the valve from the crank case and replaced it with a valve housing with no guts inside which cured the dipstick problem.

It's an injection engine with a catch can: PCV to can, plenum to can, carter-top to can, I had to put a reduction (1.5 mm) in the lead from carter-top to can in order to get rid of whining noise in idle (coming from the end of the engine where I can now see the spray of oil). Compression is equal (11 bar) for all 4 cylinders.

why do you need a catch tank if you've got a PCV valve and its connected to the plenum ?

the clean (by condensation) the vented fumes from the carter; it worked well the last year but reconsidering the situation: it's mounted at the same level as the pcv, should it ber mounted higher?