white smoke at start up?

[weatherm]

cold start ... medium start.... what you think... I believe it smells like oil....

need some gurus to chime in... its just on start. and not everytime either..

I hope its not a head gasket

[scott]

burning oil would be blueish, coolant smells sweet when burnt

[weatherm]

piston rings going bad??

it is blueish

[LC_rover]

Mine's doing the same thing. The smoke really looks kind of white to me, but I guess it could be called blue. But I am losing oil at a fair rate, and no coolant so I am resigned to the fact that I'm going to dive into the engine this weekend and my wife will be driving me to work until I can get it repaired.

Best case scenario is I can toss a set of rings on it while the block is still in the vehicle, but I am thinking its going to be worse than that and I'll end up having to rebuild the whole thing. :(

[Nium]

If it's when the engine is cold and goes away when the engine is warm then it may just be condensation in the exhaust burning off. Not to uncommon when the weather turns colder and on cold mornings.

[thixon]

Is it a puff of smoke at start up after its sat a while? Give me more info.

As it stands, I'm guessing worn out valve guide seals.

As far as the head gasket goes, pull the plugs and look at each one. Let us know if there is one (or more) with a different color and possibly some crusty buildup.

[TedW]

As it stands, I'm guessing worn out valve guide seals.

I'm with thixon. Valve guide seals seem to wear quickly - I've never gotten more than 2 years from a set. When they go you get a puff of smoke at startup (from the oil that settled into the cylinders), then the smoke goes away. Well, it doesn't really go away, it just burns more slowly.

Right now I'm just putting up with the smoke. And my brandy-new engine only has 3k on it.

[LC_rover]

Not trying to hi-jack Weather's thread, but I have the same issue.

It was only smoking at start up, but then two things happened...

1. I "tuned" it up, with new plugs and cleaned and adjusted ignition, etc.

2. The weather cooled off significantly. So t starts colder and takes longer to warm up.

Now it appears to be smoking a little more than usual, and much more than usual at start up. Oil pressure is low, but not sure if the gauge and sender are even accurate.


Mine will smoke heavily when leaving work, but not so much when leaving the house. Maybe its the angle of the ground pooling oil somewhere? :confused: I could swear that when I warm it up, it smokes less, but then the first left hand turn I make its like it dumps a ton of oil and smokes like the dickens. Again... maybe my imagination.

I didn't adjust the valves on my tune, because I was still waiting for a valve cover gasket, and if I ripped my old one taking if off, then I would have been stuck. I have the gasket now and I am going to pop the cover and clean it up and try check the valves and set them properly. Hopefully that helps.

Unfortunately, its started making a scary noise when driving now... sort of a knocking, but it still appears to run okay. I am afraid I broke something in the engine. :(

When I changed the plugs, they looked dirty, but almost brown and not black? You can literally SEE the oil though if you put something near the exhaust and catch the spray. Coolant levels do not appear to be falling yet.

[thixon]

LC,

How many miles are on the engine? Sounds like its severly worn. Your last statement stood me up in my seat. You did say, you can actually see oil spraying out the tail pipe right?

[LC_rover]

I have no idea. I had it as a trail runner in Colorado and it didn't get many miles at all. I moved to South Carolina and turned it into my daily driver. Before I owned it, it could have been around the world for all I know.

I know there was a large black oily/sooty spot on my wife's car where my tailpipe was, prompted us to stagger our vehicles in the driveway. :D

But yeah, I am pretty sure that if I put a cloth over the tailpipe, I'm going to get oil on it.

[weatherm]

I haven't noticed any smoking when it was warmer but now that its cooler I have noticed smoke.. I have a few holes in my muffler ( getting that fixed this week) so I could just be old crud in the swiss cheese muffler. When its daylight outside and I can pull the plugs I will. They are new in there so this should give a good accurate reading on the color. We shall see whats up .. I'll report back during the weekend. I can't do anything outside b/c its dark when I get off work and I don't have a 8ft garage :)

I have 110k on the engine now.

[navydevildoc]

LC,

How many miles are on the engine? Sounds like its severly worn. Your last statement stood me up in my seat. You did say, you can actually see oil spraying out the tail pipe right?


I've noticed this on my IIA a few times. I have assumed that this motor will need a pretty thorough rebuild soon, and that the oil is blow-by due to not-so-great rings. Would this be a good guess?