white smoke coming from under the hood

[nwo504]

every time i drive there's white smoke coming from under the hood at first the fan was broken and the car overheated alot so i got a new one but there's still smoke. should i worry about it?

aloso i have to add oil like every week...

[88LXi68]

sounds like a blown headgasket

[shepherd79]

well, let your car idle and look where the smoke comes out. what side of the engine and so on.
you could have some hose busted.

[AZmike]

My guess is the valve cover gasket is leaking oil onto the exhuast system. A quick check with everything running should be all it takes to find out.

[3G Jester]

Originally posted by AZmike
My guess is the valve cover gasket is leaking oil onto the exhuast system. A quick check with everything running should be all it takes to find out.

oh hell ya. second opinion right here.
thats what it was for me. 17 bucks at autozone. get the one WITH grommets for the bolts that hold the head gasket on.

if your like i was and completely clueless and dont have a manual click this link.....one of our members in russia [paulaerodeck] was kind enough to photograph the entire manual and upload it in sections. dowload it and use it. it is the bible and helped me more times then i can count.

http://www.pauldesign.ru

you can also download custom gagues from this site. the 'reverse indiglo' style ones. if you bring them on disk to kinkos they will print out on really good paper and you can put them over you gagues. some people have gone as far as to paint over the orignal gagues first so there is no light comming through...then they mount a small blacklight above the gagues in the pod out of sight. it illuminates them really well and is sooo sexual. if you have any more questions hit my up on AIM or PM me. i have all these links lying around. hope i was a help
--trav

[A20A1]

Yes you should worry about it... unless you have a diesel engine your car should not smoke.

I would seriously check your coolant and oil ... make sure your coolant doesn't have oil mixing in with it... but even if oil isn't mixing there is a chance that the gasket will need replacing since you said your car overheated a lot.

[3rdGenMartyr]

I have the same problem, but i know what is wrong. Oil is blowing through the breather filter onto the flex pipe, and the filter itself is smoking. I pulled the valve cover gasket and the right oil inlet into the head was smoking, please help a guy out with this.

[A20A1]

Are you sure your PCV valve is working? or do you have serious leaky valves. check the compression

[3rdGenMartyr]

how do you mean check the compression?

I had just replaced the timing belt and had lost one of the valve cover nuts, so i did without it until I got a new one. Durning that time I blew alot of oil out of the gaping hole in the valve cover. Could this be a supporting factor to my problem, or could it be that when the timing belt broke, it hurt the motor.

It also wont stay at an idle without dying, but i can fix that.

And where is the pcv valve on the a20a3.

By the way, I just passed 300, 000 miles when this happened and would really like to keep the motor working until it has no will to live.

[ICEMAN707]

well if it's coming from WITHIN the engine, most likely you have a coolant leak somewhere. check your coolant temperature unit housing for leaks in the gasket and replace all your coolant hoses with new ones and change your radiator. you might have pin hole or leak in one of them that's spraying coolant each time you run your engine when coolant/water pressure rises.

white smoke usually means coolant/water leak and black smoke usually means oil leak. the hoses you wanna change are the upper and lower radiator coolant hoses and your heather hoses. try running your engine and look under the hood and see where the leak is coming from. it helps to clean all the gunk out of your engine with lots of engine degreaser.

worst case scenario, you might have a leaking head gasket or a cracked cylinder head. if so, you should also have white smoke coming out of your exhaust due to the coolant leaking into the combustion chamber. that's not a good sign. your engine will corrode and rust internally and seize up on you.

[3rdGenMartyr]

could be the head gasket, cause there was smoke coming from the right oil inlet on the head, but none on the other. If it were cracked it would be obvious, I've broken many heads and the car is pretty much undrivable after that. I can deal with a head gasket, thats easy enough to fix on my own. It still doesnt explain why there is oil coming through the breither filter on the valve cover, that doesnt make sense.

Oh yeah, the car doesnt get hot, just blows oil.

Is there an easier way to advance the timing on our car without pulling the distributor, i thought about turning the cap, but it scews in and am not sure, man i miss my pushrod crap motors, atleast they were easier to work on, more room and less stuff to move when pulling a head.

Thanks guys, if you could help out a little more, i would appreciate it.

[ICEMAN707]

the only way to adjust timing is to turn the distributor. there are 3 bolts you need to losen holding it in place.

as far as the oil coming out of your breather filter on your valve cover, check the inside of your valve cover and see if the oil screens that keep oil from going through the breather tube are still intact. if not, try a new valve cover from a junk yard. be sure to buy new valve cover gaskets as well.

[A20A1]

Originally posted by 3rdGenMartyr
how do you mean check the compression?

Well if you are loosing compression because of leaky valves then that could be why you are blowing so much oil out of your valve cover... either that or the baffel on the inside is gone like ICEMAN707 mentioned.
Aslo gasses can build up if not ventilated properly by the PCV valve and hose thats on the valve cover. Thats why I said to check your PCV valve. Here is the location of that valve https://www.3geez.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=69