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Posted by Matt (93SE) on October 04, 2002 at 11:43:38:
In Reply to: How long do you think I should just let it run??? 15, 20 or 30 minutes...(long) posted by G3Max on October 04, 2002 at 10:18:43:
Anyway, the smoke could be caused from many things, which a compression test will begin to answer for you. it'll at least tell you if the head gasket is sealing on the cylinders and if the rings are okay. also, the valve stem seals are prone to die on these cars, which will cause oil smoke at startup. usually it only lasts for a few seconds. Is the car driveable? if so, take it for a 10-15 minute drive. if the head gasket is bad or the rings are gone, you're not going to do any more damage by running it another few miles. give it a little bit of open road and open it up to clean the gunk out (once it's warmed up). Soooo, I drained the oil and filled it to the correct level. it took almost 30 minutes of driving around town for the engine to stop smoking and burn all the crap out of the exhaust. (Good thing I had a gutted cat!) : or until the smoke clears up, which maybe never. I hope not!!! : Anyway the reason why I am jumping to say that it maybe the head gasket is because I had the problem of engine oil spewing out of the dipstick guide and actually forced the dipstick out of the guide by about 3-4 inches. This happened twice, so I stopped driving her. Didn't know what was wrong with her since I am not very good at engine diagnostics but am learning. : I came across a newspaper article from Click & Clack (I hope I don't get flamed) where they were asked the exact problem that I had. Their reply was that it was blow-by due to worned piston rings was causing the oil to spew out of the dipstick guide. However, they did say there is a small chance that the culprit was the PCV valve. : So, I got the PCV valve replaced (bought the part from Pep Boys). Also discovered that the 90 degree elbow hose from the PCV valve to the intake manifold was busted too. Got a rather longish replacement hose , so that there would be no kink in it. : I also removed the plugs and discovered that the tips of the plugs were covered in engine oil. Here I am puzzled??? Oil in the cylinders??? There had not been any black or blue smoke from the exhaust. : At this point, I am thinking that I have to change out my piston rings. And if I am going to do that, I might as well do an engine rebuild. : Well, as I was preparing myself for it, some gearhead friends at work told me that I should at least do a compression test to determine if I really need to perform an engine rebuild. I do know that I should also perform a leak-down test on her but I don't have access to the proper gauges and importantly an air compressor. : Thanks for listening (or reading in this case)
If the car had been parked for a while, there can easily be a lot of gunk in the cylinders that will take a while to burn off. if ou've got bad rings (a cracked ring in one cylinder isn't TOO uncommon either, except you usually only see that on boost/nos.
A couple months back, I had overfilled my oil to the point that it was hitting the bottom of the piston skirts, and it smoked like a winston cup car with a blown engine.. needless to say, I was scared half out of my mind. After letting the car sit overnight and checking the oil, I found out there were about 10 qts of oil in it.. yes, TEN. (hint: never check the oil on a VE with the engine warm. only check it cold! it'll show empty every time if you check it warm!)