Here is a rundown of what lead up to my car dying. Not sure how much of it is important, so I figured I would include it all.

For a while, the Check Engine light has been on. Read the code and it was an O2 sensor, so I replaced those. Stayed on. I figured one of the new sensors was bad and I would get around to fixing it later. Today I noticed it seemed to not be shifting to the next gear. Keeping the RPMs higher than normal. When I got in the car to go for lunch, the AC randomly died. The RPMs were still staying higher. When we got to where we were going, I looked under the hood and there was a little bit of smoke. Couldn't tell where it was coming from. After lunch the AC worked again. Made it a few miles down the road and it started feeling very sluggish. Wouldn't accelerate. I gassed it for a couple of seconds then it make a "thunk" noise and lost pretty much all power. The car was barely moving and kept knocking. Not a fast knock, just a slow knocking as it crawled down the road. As soon as I stopped it died. Pushed it into parking lot and opened the hood. The dip stick was pushed up and oil was everywhere.

Ideas on where to start looking?

 

I am guessing the oil came from the dipstick tube? If so then I would hope the pressure needed to push that much oil out that small opening came from a blocked crankcase ventilation system. This would be a somewhat easy fix. However, I would also check the compression for bent valves. Unfortunately, the older 2000-2004 1.9L engines have the leaking CVVT gear issue which can lead to serious damage. Remove the top cover from the timing belt and check inside for oil. The timing belt should be dry at all times. If it's soaked in oil you have a leak.

 

Yes, it blew up out of the dipstick tube. I'll take off the cover for the timing belt and look. Although, right now oil is everywhere under the hood. We'll see.

If its a blocked crankcase ventilation system, what should I look for?

Also, someone had the idea my catalytic converter may be completely blocked. Said that would explain the O2 sensor warnings, and the pressure can build up and blow oil out your dipstick tube. Any idea if that might be the case?

 

Yes, a blocked cat would definitely cause excessive back pressure. The old trick is to remove the upper O2 sensor to give the exhaust a place to go and then see if the engine acts better. Don't drive it this way for long as hot exhaust gases are escaping straight into the engine compartment.

I'd give that a try before worrying about the crankcase ventilation system. The newer 2004.5 and up 5 cylinder engines have a known problem with this system but the older 1.9L engines do not. See the big black plastic piece below the intake manifold?

 

You talking about this piece?

 

Yes. On the 1.9L engine it's the PCV and air/oil separator. There is a hose that comes down from the cam cover by the oil fill and then metal pipes that connect over to the head on the drivers side. I bet you could do a quick test by simply removing the rubber hose by the oil fill and trying to blow through the rubber hose.

The rubber hose sitting next to the oil fill cap in this pic:

 

So, work finally slowed down and I finally got around to taking a look at this.

First, just a note that when we first got the car to the house I tried starting it up again and it started, but it ran very rough.

So today I removed the front O2 sensor and started the engine up. It ran very rough (just like when I got it home) and white smoke poured out of the hole for the O2 sensor. I revved it a couple of times and it was responsive, but continued to run very rough and smoke continued to pour out. I'm assuming at this point it isn't a blocked converter. Do these symptoms point towards anything else?

 

White smoke is steam from water. This could be condensation from the cold. Now did the smoke smell sweet like coolant? Is your coolant level low? If so, it could be a blown head gasket or worse, a cracked/warped head. I would pull the spark plugs and look for a bright white plug that is different than the rest (it's been steam cleaned). This might explain why you had enough crankcase pressure to push oil out of the dipstick tube.

 

Timing belt.