exhaust smoke

[carotman]

Hmm this is an odd one.

You can install catch cans on the valve cover breather hose and pcv system. This way, you'll see if there's any oil comming from these places. (like air compressor catch cans)

If you can hear air from the oil passages, this isn't good. I wonder if it could be a bad head gasket or cracked head (I don't want to jinx it).

If you remove the intake manifold, you'll see right away if the valve seals are good or not.

[gp02a0083]

thanks for the input guys. I was maybe thinking the same as you are carotman. That somehow its a head gasket, however there are no signs of oil in the coolant or coolant in the oil systems. I believe that the pcv system is working alright. i pulled the valve cover breather tube and the pcv tube that goes to the intake, they are bone dry. So that makes me think its not the pcv. However im noticing that the valve cover tube has some very light pressure out of it, i thought this was suppose to have a slight vac on it. i checked the intake manifold for vac, put the gauge on the intake were the pvc goes and it was reading 20 mm hg (may have my units wrong )

the engine oil system is spotless , you can eat off of it, so i don't think anything is gummed up. It is strange to hear air out of the oil return passages on the both front and the rear driver side passage in the head without having anything coming out of the dipstick tube when the cylinder is closed off. Also its strange that you can hear it out of the cylinder #1 when your checking #4 and vice versa.

im leaning on that it may be the valve seals, maybe the old pcv valve caused the initial problem and caused blow by in the seals and now there shot and there's too much residue junk in the cylinder and the exhaust to tell if it really is the seals or not. i think with the age of the car , even tho it was well maintained, the seals are worn. It was only driven 5k miles in 5 years before i bought it in September. I just haven't had any issues until after the lower ball joint gave out and i replaced all the parts. I may take the pan back off to check the splash guard clearance for the pcv tube, but like i said at this point i am fed up and i cant work on the car anymore without getting pissed off. I really don't like the fact that the car decided to switch over being a 2 stroke

[carotman]

I doubt it but it could be oil rings that are gummed a bit.

If you plan to change the oil and remove the pan, you could try to put a tablespoon or 2 of auto tranny fluid in each cylinder and let it sit overnight. This oil is very detergent and will clean old oil residues.

Changing the valve seals can be done without removing the head if you plan to go that route.
I'm not sure but maybe you can see the intake valves if you remove the injectors. If you don't see any oil leak from there... well...

[gp02a0083]

I doubt it but it could be oil rings that are gummed a bit.

If you plan to change the oil and remove the pan, you could try to put a tablespoon or 2 of auto tranny fluid in each cylinder and let it sit overnight. This oil is very detergent and will clean old oil residues.

Changing the valve seals can be done without removing the head if you plan to go that route.
I'm not sure but maybe you can see the intake valves if you remove the injectors. If you don't see any oil leak from there... well...

i agree , the engine appears too clean to be gummed up. We tried putting last night some motor honey (STP) in it for the heck of it, seeing if it would reduce the amount of smoke , didn't do anything. We also switched the oil form 10w30 to 10w40. I was thinking about some marvel mystery oil, i knew about the trans fluid trick, its an old school trick done typically done with carb'd engines and i've used it a few times on friends rotary's to clean up apex seals. it may be possible but a tough angle to see down the runners through the injection ports, at least with this it would support my thought it was pcv system that started all of this and i would see residual oil in the runners. Im gonna try bringing it to my girlfriends fathers mechanic to have another person look it over.

we were going to replace the seals yesterday, but the grabber tool we have to keep the valve from dropping down the cylinder was too big. Also it wouldn't be able to grab because of a secondary spring inside the main spring. if i go that route ill use some twine or 20lbs test fishing line to hold it. At this point im wayy too busy to keep messing with this, i just want to have someone else look at it. If they say valve seals , fine ill do it, but if its the oil rings....eh not gonna mess with it ill let someone else deal with it

[markmdz89hatch]

ok, sorry for being so late on this one...

Given everything that you've already tested and done, and the fact that the problems seemed to start as soon as the pan was replaced, I'm going to take a different direction....

You say that you had to cut the pan->pcv catch can hose about an inch short. Given this, although you were able to get the hose back on the nipple on the pan, I'm thinking it could be kinked. If the can is clean enough, and flows fine, as well as the new pcv valve and hose from the valve to the can, it may appear that there's no 'blockage', but a kinked or crimped hose can cause that blockage as well.

If the PCV system is blocked substantially, it'll cause higher crankcase pressure and can cause (depending on the level of blockage) significant blow-by and subsequently headgasket damage as well.

As a quick test, I'd put a breather filter at the end of a length of hose and suspend it on the firewall or somewhere a little higher (to keep from any oil just blowing out of the hose), or use a length of hose and a cheap catch can with a breather on it. ..then put a breather filter on the v/c as well. That'll temporarily remove the PCV and catch can as well as all of it's hoses from the equation. ...see where you are then.

Trouble is, even if the hose was kinked and caused blow-by, simply removing the blockage won't necessarily fix it as it could very well have cause other damage (oil between the rings, valve seals to leak, or even hg to begin to fail.)

only the slightest bit of antifreeze will burn white, where you may not even notice any loss of fluid for a long while. Who knows there honestly. I'm putting my money on just excessive blow-by causing the majority of the smoke.

...as for the thought of a 63k motor not having any trouble... ...if it were only about 5-10 years old, I'd say that's really low mileage and a great thing. The bittersweet part about a 22 year old car with 64k is that the body and interior should be in very very good shape and the car should be very clean overall, but the motor and anything else rubber or a joint would most likely need some attention.

...these parts are all meant to move. If the car was used very rarely and/or for short drives and sat for a significant time, there's likely lots of gunk built up and the seals have more dryrot than a motor with let's say 120k because the oil and grease would have settled or begun to deteriorate.

The fact that the balljoints are dry rotting or just failing is indicative of other rubber parts or parts requiring lubrication to begin to fail as well.

...all told, I'd still prefer to be in your boat than that of most of us with a good running motor but a tired body and interior.

If you need any help, or even some spare parts don't hesitate to ask.

[markmdz89hatch]

PS> Be careful with the heavy oil or other stopleak stuff. If you're dealing with high crankcase pressure, you're only going to make the situation worse with thicker stuff.

[gp02a0083]

so i went ahead and got the valve stem seals replaced. Still seems to smoke a bit after i rev it and after hot and cold start ups. The amount of smoke tho had decreased , but it now smells like burnt rubber rather than oil. I really want to think that its just all the residual oil from before burning off in the exhaust.

[gp02a0083]

bump for additional information.

so i restarted the car, it smokes on start up.....frigging great....
anyway i took a look at the pvc valve, seems like the bottom portion is wet with oil , valve still works and rattles. I put it back together, i took the oil cap off the top of the valve cover with it running, it seems there is a lot of pressure in the valve cover. I thought there should be a slight Vac on the line going to the air intake tube for fresh air. at this point im suspecting something has to be blocked. ill try removing the oil pan and start from there.

[markmdz89hatch]

i'd seriously try the pcv bypass test. with the pcv hose being cut a tiny bit shorter than it's supposed to be due to trouble you had removing the hose when you replaced the pan, I'm still banking on the hose causing a restriction and causing pressure build-up in the crank case, causing blow-by. Rings might be shot if this was a pcv blockage problem and you've been driving on it because they can only take so much blow-by caused by pressure before they start to get all yucked up on you.

pick up a dirt cheap glowshift sandwich adapter, and a cheap oil pressure gauge and see what you're oil pressure is looking like at the filter.

[gp02a0083]

i drove the car last night to my parents house, smoked a bit for the first 2 miles , then it didn't seem like it smoked at all until you revved it at a stop light or parked.

Mark , in regards to your post. I disassembled most of it last night so that my father could look at the oil pan today. Now with the valve stem seals replaced that is one factor that can be thrown out (unless they were scored severely, but i don't think that is the case.)

i argued with my father about using the 10w-40 in addition to the motor honey being that i don't think the engine is breathing properly and as mentioned before we are dealing with high crankcase pressures. He did this to rule out the rings or the stem seals, but i mainly think he said for the rings.

i think before the stem seals were on their way out due to age and whatever is causing the high crankcase pressure just helped them along. so now its narrowed down to the oil pan causing this issue, or the rings are shot. I even had a wild guess that it might be very tiny head gasket failure, but so far i have not noticed white smoke or loss of coolant.

the first step tho is to check the splash guard on the oil pan to see if it isn't welded shut or blocked, then next after that is checking the black vapor separator box for blockage.

also ive been meaning to install an oil pressure gauge and voltmeter of some type. I do not like the fact i can not monitor anything besides rpm's. I suppose they make a generic kit of some type? I have not really looked into this.

[Dr_Snooz]

I highly recommend getting a gauge pack. It sure would have saved my first engine if I had known it wasn't getting enough oil pressure. The center part of the seal on my oil pump gave up, so the pump was just moving oil from the high side to the low side. The idiot light never turned on and the thing burned up. What a sucko way to find out those gaskets will do that. What a sucko thing to happen to my 3g. The volt gauge will help keep you from getting stranded if the alternator gets tired. Totally worth every penny.

[lostforawhile]

your pan is on the way