PDA

View Full Version : Whats that smoke?



labeledsk8r
07-18-2006, 11:38 AM
ok well ong story short i was driveing down a local highway going to the junkyard and grey smoke started comeone out of my tailpipe, and i mean alot, i kept driveing and it went away for a bit then started doing it again and so one and so forth all the way there, and on the way back it only spit out a little bit and then stoped, the smoke wasnt a black smoke or something it was like a grayish smoke (mayby white, hope its not oil) it is really hot here in florida and i know my catilatic converter is going out, any ideas?? i gotta drive to work soon and im wondering if i should even be driveing it. thanks

chainz
07-18-2006, 12:02 PM
bad news - white/grayish smoke is probably burning coolant -- head gasket / head problem maybe
check coolant and oil levels and conditions. it could just simply be burning coolant which isn't so bad (as long as you watch the level and don't overheat) but if instead you are getting contamination between the coolant/oil this is very BAD do not run the car until fixing it.

labeledsk8r
07-18-2006, 12:30 PM
i will have to check it after work tonight, should i just look for oil in the coolant? thanks

w261w261
07-18-2006, 01:39 PM
Pull out the dipstick and see what the oil looks like. If it's not "smooth" but has gooey characteristics, it means that coolant has got in the oil. Likewise, look at the coolant and see if it has streaks and oilfilm in it.

There is a copper-like additive that claims to be able to seal a leaking head gasket or block, but you have to super-purge the coolant system of ALL antifreeze before using it. There are other additives that might work also. If it is a leaking gasket, you might be able to get by with one of those. Have you let the car overheat recently? If so, you might have warped the head, in which case it's more serious.

But the white smoke is coolant, that's for sure.

chainz
07-18-2006, 05:05 PM
yeah like w261 said check both the oil and coolent - oil will be gooeyish - coolant may start to look like peanut butter. Also there will be a sweet (in a nasty way) smell to that white smoke and also the oil if u are getting coolant in it.
Coolant in he oil will wash away the lubrication in your cylindars (and other areas) so you could end up doing some serious damage to your motor. if the oil looks good but ur coolant looks off it's not so much to worry about.

I know this problem too well cause the 88 LXi I had back in 2001 had this exact problem - turned out to be a cracked head.

labeledsk8r
07-18-2006, 05:23 PM
well i just got back from work and amagine that its raining like hell ot so i guess it will have to wate till mornige, um the gage has never went over half way but then again i think my thermostat is screwd up aswell. i have blown a hose before but the car stalled itself out right after it blew so im guessing it didnt over heat and that was many months ago and has since been running fine, also if it helps i think the timeing is way off, i was getting realy bad detonation or w/e right now im useing 93 octane till next week. i was going to replace the timeing belt and seals. but if this is something thats going to shorten the life of my engien then screw it.

lostforawhile
07-18-2006, 07:13 PM
another thing you can look for which is a strange characteristic to the carbed cars,is that coolant goes through your carb itself. I've kept several people from junking their cars due to this. there is a wierd shaped double o ring gasket under the carb base, this not only seals the carb,it keeps coolant under pressure from getting into your intake system. it's right next to the openings in the intake. if it goes bad,coolant can be sucked under vaccume straight into your intake manifold. there are a couple of hoses that allow coolant to flow into the intake,this serves as your bypass for the cooling system,you can take the intake out of the equasion by connecting these hoses together to bypass the intake. don't forget the one that connects to the carb base. if it stops doing this when you stop coolant from flowing through the intake manifold, you eithier have a bad o ring under the carb,the coolant passage in the carb has become porous and is leaking.or you might have a crack in the intake itself causing coolant to leak.

labeledsk8r
07-18-2006, 08:42 PM
actully ima check that out, the car has shot smoke before when i forgot to hook back up some vacume lines to the carb so this might be the case, i hope it is the case, thanks

labeledsk8r
07-19-2006, 11:43 AM
ok well i checked my oil via dipstick and it looked normal, and when i opened the radiator cap the coolent looked normal no oil mixed in so im guessing lostforawhile's idea is whats happening, um can it be driven as is without damageing the car ? ima have to find a place to work on it becuse im not suposed to work on my car in my naborhood, pluss im pissed off becuse some little kid slamed his bike into my car now the bumper has a huge scratch and a busted side marker, i hate apartments

Cant Stop
07-19-2006, 02:37 PM
should be ok as it is burning it like fuel
if you look like you are creating a smoke screen then driving might not be a good idea
keep an eye on the coolant level
you anywhere near orlando?, just curious cuz if you are you can stop by and fix it here if need be.

labeledsk8r
07-21-2006, 03:03 PM
ok so its friday and management left so i got some time to work on my car, i took the air box off and i think i found 3 problems that might contribute to the smoke and maby even the reason my secondarys wont kick in half the time,
problem 1: a torn hole in a vacum line, dont know what that line does, i dont know jack about carbs
problem 2: broken hookup for another line, looks important, also looked as if it was rigged back together with a straw shoved in each side trying to conect it back together, also what is it that the hose conects 2? can i replace it easyly/cheaply?
problem 3: a crack on the inside of the air box
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y126/labeledsk8r/carb1.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y126/labeledsk8r/carb2.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y126/labeledsk8r/carb3.jpg
could any of these be the cause of the burning coolent? i dont know anything about carbs so its all new to me, and cant stop yeah i live in ocala not to far but i can normaly find a place to work on the car, just have to wait a few days sometimes, but thanks

**Bump** sat is my only day to finish the car up for another week, and i gotta walk to the parts store lol

bumb one more time before i go to sleep

lostforawhile
07-22-2006, 06:14 AM
ok so its friday and management left so i got some time to work on my car, i took the air box off and i think i found 3 problems that might contribute to the smoke and maby even the reason my secondarys wont kick in half the time,
problem 1: a torn hole in a vacum line, dont know what that line does, i dont know jack about carbs
problem 2: broken hookup for another line, looks important, also looked as if it was rigged back together with a straw shoved in each side trying to conect it back together, also what is it that the hose conects 2? can i replace it easyly/cheaply?
problem 3: a crack on the inside of the air box
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y126/labeledsk8r/carb1.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y126/labeledsk8r/carb2.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y126/labeledsk8r/carb3.jpg
could any of these be the cause of the burning coolent? i dont know anything about carbs so its all new to me, and cant stop yeah i live in ocala not to far but i can normaly find a place to work on the car, just have to wait a few days sometimes, but thanksyou need to replace the piece of vaccume line with the hole in it,auto parts store,the other one that is broken is more critical thats your choke pull off,if for some reason the electric part of the choke is not functioning,you might be driving with the choke closed. it's supposed to pull the choke partially open as soon as the car starts. when does the car smoke? it might be fuel smoke from an overly rich mixture. I went and looked through my carb parts,but I don't have an extra one that functions,I'm sure someone on the site has that part around somewhe.I might have the diaphram for it,but not the plastic part.

labeledsk8r
07-22-2006, 07:34 AM
well i will see if i can get one from the junk yard today, and the car only smokes once i have been driveing for a while, and it seems to only do it in the day, when is hot out,

ok got the vacum lines changed out, um should i just plug that choke pull off for now? or is that not wise, i kinda need a car to get to the junkyard with lol

lostforawhile
07-22-2006, 05:53 PM
ok got the vacum lines changed out, um should i just plug that choke pull off for now? or is that not wise, i kinda need a car to get to the junkyard with lol
yea I would just plug it for now so you don't have a vaccume leak,even if this doesn't fix the smoke,you did fix some other problems that needed attention

labeledsk8r
07-24-2006, 02:23 PM
well i drove out to the junk yard today, it smoked once or twice on the way there, mostly if i steped on the gas a little bit. i think it has something to do with how hot it is out but i dont know, well got to the yard and every dx and lx accord was missing the carb and everythig else, also when i was looking at the peice, i really dont know how to take it off, like i said before i dont know much about carbs, but if anyone knows of a place that sells them (the choke release) please let me know, i got 2 more junk yards to check but they normaly only have FI accords there

ok well i drove non stop for about an hour tonight, and nothing, yet yesterday driveing around it did it once or twice. could this have to do with how hot the car is getting? this is florida and its been getitng close to 100 easy with humiditiy. also could it be that theres 2 much presure in the cooling system? i was wondering if i should put a lighter radiator cap on there, its a 16 lb one now mayby a downgrade to a 14lb? no clue, im moveing in about 2 weeks and i gotta have this figured out, im also going to start a new thread looking for that choke release since every JY in town either has FI cars or the carbs and everytihng else is gone, thanks

A20A1
07-25-2006, 10:49 PM
Why are there wires in the fast idle unloader?

The crack in the air box is small fries.

If you're ingesting coolant it could be from one of the carb gaskets or from the head gasket or some internal crack allowing coolant to leak in.

labeledsk8r
07-25-2006, 11:04 PM
yeah im not to worried about the box anymore, um i dont know what a fast idle unloader is? if you mean the thing i need replaced and your talking about the red thing coming out the vacum line, thats the straw from like a wd40 can it seems like, someone tried to ghetto rig it back together. um i dont think is my head gasket becuse i havent gotten oil in my coolent or the other way around, i dont know crap about carbs so i 1. dont know how to take that broken peice of to replace it (i cant even find the peice since all local JY's dont seem to have carbed's left on there accords)2. dont know how to change the carb seals out. its times like this is wish i was Fuel injected