Mystery oil loss

[fredsamuels]

Hello,
I was hoping somebody could help me with a problem I'm having with a 1984 toyota truck I just bought.
Its a 2 wheel drive with a 22r engine. It has a little over 158,000 miles on it, and I'm basically the 3rd owner. Everything seems to work on it but the truck is using oil. There are no oil spots even though there seems to be seeping on the valve cover and front top right timing or oil pump cover.
It doesn't smoke, and when I bought it it was a quart and half low of oil... the owner said the dealership he worked for probaly didn't fill it and he never had to add oil. And he had just had the oil changed 1,000 miles ago... well the paper work proved that. So I filled it up and drove it 50 miles.... no loss of oil. now after about 200 hundred miles its a half quart low. No drippings, no smoking. The service manual says the causes could be a bad pcv valve, bad rings, bad valve guides or bad valve seats. But any of these problems should.... it should be smoking bad using half a quart in 200 miles. Anybody got suggestions. The valves seem to be tapping a little at idle, probaly needs ajusting.
Thanks,
Fredsamuels

[5.7yotafan]

I'm assuming its the non-turbo motor, I'd say its probably the piston rings if I had to guess, did you check the backside of the motor to make sure there's no oil leaks? It could be leaking out somewhere slow enough that you can't hardly see smoke, good luck!

[fredsamuels]

[fredsamuels]

It matters how you check the oil... hoop on stick back toward rear makes a quarter of a quart difference, parking slightly uphill makes a quarter of a quart less..... parking slightly downhill makes a quarter of a quart more... probaly burning a quart every 1000 to 1500 miles... as you say the rings are getting worn, haven't checked the PCV valve yet....Sammmmmmmmmmmmmmbc

[TruckBoy]

Well, it could be a problem with a casket and it could smoke only at high torque like when on higher speed. Have your valves, rings and clearances checked and lets hope it will fix the problem.