My car is bellowing white smoke on warm-up.
It starts about 5 minutes into a drive after starting cold. Then stops 5 minutes later, and doesn’t smoke anymore.
At first I thought it was steam, but it also happens when the car has only sit for an hour or two.
It wasn’t doing this before I stored it for the winter. Then it sat at my folk’s house for three months and was only started twice. I re-set the valve clearance, dwell and timing, (WHICH I SET to around 28% maybe 29% @ 3500) and drove it 250miles back to Cleveland.
It drives great, pulls strong, ideals fine, and makes no unusual noises. It's just that 5 minute window after the car has sat that makes me feel like the car is going to explode.
I've got a 76 2.0 with D-jet and around 31k on a rebuild. I've also driven around 2500 on a Mobile 1 oil change?
I'm just hoping this doesn't sound like rebuild time?

I'll try to post a video of it tonight.
Thanks guys
Samson

I doubt if it is steam.

My guess its oil from a a stuck ring.

Paul

Long ago when mine was still a '76 2.0 I had a similer problem. It turned out to be a bad head temp sender (actually the wire, replace anyway). Check the oil and smell the stick, Got fuel. Mine did, about a quart. I can't remember the test procedure but I bet someone on the board will.

Eric

does your oil-filler cap have white/brown-ish sludge on it on the inside?

Andy

*GENERALY* speaking, white smoke is steam, and is caused by condensation or coolant (moot here) leaking into intake system. Sometime on power brakes (also moot here) a failure in the booster will cause brake fluid to be sucked into intake also causing white smoke.

Blue smoke on the other hand.......not good

Do an oil change and have a look at what's in there.

Possible bad advice: Dump in a quart of ATF in place of a quart of oil. Old mechanic's trick to loosen things up. Never done it in an aircooled engine though, so if someone else says it's a terrible idea, don't do it!

Chances are that someone built it with the crappy Grant rings that are worn out of the box!

I thought burning oil (like from bad rings) caused blue smoke??

blue = oil
black = too much gas
white = moisture

Is this incorrect?

sirandy I'll check the oil cap tonight.

E.fry I pulled the dip stick one time right when it started to bellow and I didn't notice the smell of fuel, but then again, I didn't try smelling it.
I thought I might find metal shaving or other mechanical badness, but the only oddity was small bubbles. Also, I would think the Temp II sensor would effect over all drivablity, hot or cold.

Jake, I would think that if it was the rings that it would smoke all the time, which it doesn't appear too. But I know nothing about nothing. I'm only to the oil pump assembaly on your video

Thanks for the input guys

QUOTE (Rand @ May 19 2005, 02:57 PM)

I thought burning oil (like from bad rings) caused blue smoke?? blue = oil black = too much gas white = moisture Is this incorrect?

If you have too much blue smoke it starts to look white. There's no water source significant enough in an aircooled engine to repeatedly make that much steam.. so it's gotta be oil. You didn't top off the tank with diesel did you? (my dad did that to my bro's ranchero.. lots of white smoke)

I don't know where enough water would come from (is it garaged out of the rain?) and how it would be getting into the exhaust, but I don't know what else makes white smoke. I've never seen so much blue smoke it looks white.

Is there any chance water is pooling somewhere then running down and getting on the exhaust? You said "into a drive..." Have you got out and checked the exhaust while it's smoking? For sure coming out of the tail pipe? Any odd odor to it? If it's burning that much oil you should be able to smell it. Any detectable odor?

Samson, I hope you'll post your findings when you figure it out. I wanna learn from this.

The crappy rings don't generally smoke all the time, They start by doing it only on start up until things get warmed up, then the engine will start using oil then smoking all the time..

The other thing could be worn valve guides... You'll say "The engine only has 30K miles on it" and I'll respond with that doesn't make a damn difference if they were reamed too large by a mass producer of someone used a crappy "replacement" guide.. The guides I use and sell are so tough that they absolutely eat reamers and get started at 80K miles...

Anyway, a worn intake guide will allow oil to be drawn past the valve from the valve cover area on each opening event this oil burn and smokes blue...

QUOTE (Jake Raby @ May 19 2005, 04:38 PM)

The other thing could be worn valve guides... You'll say "The engine only has 30K miles on it"

Anything with a warrenty(like some engine builders garrenty, or a hyndia) I don't expect to last a day. It's very possable the engine is worn, even with my "careful mantainance"
Is it possable that a miss adjusted valve might cause the same effect?

I wish I could get in touch with the guy who rebuilt my car to find out what was used in the engine, but I haven't been able to contact him. If you know a John Edwards from Tracy, CA please PM me. I'd love to talk with him.

I'm going to go out and record this. I'm not sure how helpfull it will be now that it's dark, but at least you'll see how smoke much is coming out.

I really couldn't get anything on my camera. I'll try again in the moring. It sounded like it had a small consitance backfire and I thought I heard a knock, maybe once, maybe.
Could any and all of this be related to the timing being to far advanced?

Thanks again guys, till tomorrow

Bring it to my place tomorrow night...Or come by on Sat. I'll be putting mine back together all weekend.

Video is up
With my aloud bandwidth 2 people will probably be able to see it a day, but it's up

http://www.geocities.com/newto914s/DSCN0783.MOV

My crapass camera doesn't do a great job of picking it up. But it just floats up and around the car. That's how I first noticed it. I stopped at a light and started hacking on smoke that I could see floating in front of my windsheild. I looked in my rear view mirrow to see who it was coming from and it was me

I'll host it for you....

http://www.hardman.org/pix_other/samson_smoke.mov

Thanks Doug,
We're on for today right

QUOTE (newto914s @ May 20 2005, 09:36 AM)

Thanks Doug, We're on for today right

I'll be leaving the office by 3:00. See you at my place!

The smoke you see in the video is all at idle. It appears the amount of smoke is tied to engine speed(faster=more), but I haven't tested it on engine breaking.
It's hard to test because I only have around 5 minutes running time before it stops smoking. Then I have to let it cool down before it does it again.

If I let it idle 10mins to warm up is smokes a little. then is fine

If I hop in it and jump on the highway cold. about 7 miles down the road I'll notice a puff or two of smoke while shifting. Then it's fine

If I hop in and drive around town cold, 5 minutes in, I'm smoke city

Hope that helps Sammy

check for a sticking pcv valve , if the crank case builds pressure it will smoke or the cransk case hose for blockage!!!

I was planning on changing my PVC valve after reading Brad Ander's D-jet site. Would be crazy if that's it. Where is it located?

I have a 1.7 but I think that the 2.0 is at the same place, it is on the base of the oil filler it is strait up

That's all? Don't they all do that? My parents had a motorhome that only got used every couple years. It started smoking for the first 15 minutes of running. It was so bad that if you drove it while it was warming up, people behind couldn't see you. It did that on every startup until my dad did the ATF trick and took it for an hour long drive.

The video really doesn't do it that much justice. It is ussually much thicker and you have a hard time seeing how it just hangs in the air.

My two biggest questions with this are.

1. Could the valve clearance or timing be related to the smoking?

2. if it's mechanical, ie; valve guides, or rings. How much life would you guesstamate I have, 10k or more, or should I pull it off the road now before I drop a valve seat?

My first 914 many years ago had exactly this pattern of smoking. Turned out some genius came up with the idea of drilling one of the valve guide bores oversize and putting an aluminum sleeve between the guide and the head (just pressed in). Of course after a few thousand miles it loosens up and turns into the mosquito fogger. It got so bad that I would turn off the engine at traffic lights while it was in the smoke mode.

I hope your issue isn't the same as mine but I would sure suspect valve guides.

I am gonna say rings... thats my vote!

try the shot of oil to test it.

you think thats bad yoy should have seen my mazda truck.. for about 5 mins it would blow so much smoke the truck would disappear. i could not drive it cold.. i got pulled over twice due to causing a road hazard, the first cop was behind me for 2 mins with his lights on and i could not see him.

other wise not input

Some new Developments
Good news
It has not bellowed smoke in the past two weeks, but I check my compression this weekend anyway and here's what I got.

According to the oil test my rings OK

Bad news
I have low compression on #2, my plugs didn't look to good, and I don't think I have a PCV

In the pic your can see my compression results. Cold, Cold with a little oil, then hot both ways. All at WOT.

Plug one looked a little White. I'm guessing it's too hot
#2 & #3 looked good which is surprising concidering #2 is only generating 60 PSI

#4 looked like it had a lot of carbon deposites, and oil was all over the threads and insulator. I thought it was oil fouled but when I tryed to wipe it off it was hard, so I'm guessing carbon

I'm guessing maybe #4 was taking oil in warm-up and that what was causing the smoke cloud. But if it's valve guides, why would it stop? also I have new plugs in today and it didn't smoke.

Lastly my PCV should be under the oil breather hose right where the picture is pointing right? Cause their is just a hole when I took off the hose. Anyway thoughts as to what this would cause?
All in all the car is driving pretty well considering. I'm going to reset the valve clearance and check the compression again. Hopefully then I'll know if I need to start saving for a top end rebuild.

No ideas on what would cause the car to smoke perffusly for a month then stop?
Or if I'm looking in the wrong place for the PCV, and what it would do if it's not there?
Thanks guys,
Samson

Maybe all the residual oil has burned out of the exhaust.

QUOTE (Headrage @ Jun 6 2005, 05:12 PM)

Maybe all the residual oil has burned out of the exhaust.

That's a thought I had too, but where did the oil come from?

QUOTE (newto914s @ Jun 6 2005, 10:05 PM)

...but where did the oil come from?

Santa Clause?

Come on guys...tons of engine gurus here and nobody has any ideas?