ProblemHouston

Hey all,

I have been getting the puff of white smoke only when I start the car and have been saving up to get new heads as I have figured the factory heads needed a valve job. I have had the car for about a year and a half now and don't know much about what is in the motor or when the last time it was gone through. I have put less than 3,000 miles on the car since I have had it and when I first got the car I did the suspension, carb rebuild (2bbl) new dist, new wires and plugs. This weekend I figured I needed to change the oil so I checked to see the color and where the level was at. I noticed that it had a bit more oil than it should. I checked it hot and cold and the level was high both times. My question is could this be the reason why the car is smoking just on start up? It didn't start smoking until after we we went through it and changed all the fluids. I am not sure how or if the oil got overfilled but a light went off today wondering if the two were related. What do you guys think?

barnett468

if you have a 65 there is a lite for the oil . . if the lite goes on, your oil pressure is low otr your sender is inaccurate . . check it with a mechanical gauge.

too much oil will not cause a problem on start up only . . maybe your dip stick is inaccurate.

could be bad rings.

if you floor it hard in front of another car at night and see oil in your mirror, it is piston rings.

ProblemHouston

Thanks Barnette. I will park behind it tonight and give it a couple of revs to see if I get smoke or not. If so it's rings and if not then it is the valves in the heads like I have been thinking. Next question is to port and polish the stocks for about $700 or go with the Edelbrock E-Streets.

dodgestang

Don't forget the generalized basics of car smoke

White = water
Grey = gas
Black = oil

ProblemHouston

I though white was oil and black was fuel?

dodgestang

Here's a decent article...and it isn't really black...apparently its blue for oil....that's the problem with generalized basics they get generalized.

http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2...aust-mean.html

dodgestang

Some white smoke at start up/warming up can be expected especially when it is colder outside and water vapor has condensed on the cold exhaust pipes.

The concern based on the original question to me is your oil growth and just to make sure you aren't leaking small amounts of coolant into your combustion chamber and crank case. Does the white smoke have a sweet odor to it? And with your 'high' level of oil was it still all oil or was it slightly milky in color? When you drained it into a pan did you see any clumps or strange separations/bands that could indicate coolant in your oil. Since you change the oil and have run it a bunch is your level still the same or has it grown a little bit higher?

ProblemHouston

Well when I first got the car it drove it for about a week or so and was experiencing all sort of diffferent issues with how it was running so this is the sequence of events that have me here.

First week of driving the car was sluggish and backfiring but started OK and there was no smoke at all.

Rebuilt the carb. new wires and dist. found that the firing order was off.

While changing the oil noticed it was very thick and BLACK!

Changed the oil and added some ATF and drove it around for a day.

Next day drained that oil and added fresh oil to it. It wasn't until this point that I started to notice the smoke on start up. It has been doing this for about a year now.

barnett468

simply parking behind it is an xlnt idea, but maybe park around 30 feet behind it because it might be easier to see that way.

as far as the heads go, if you have worn rings, i might not invest the money to do that and would rather put it towards fixing the engine . . i would do a wet and dry compression test prior to doing anything . . we can tell you how to do that if you want . . you can also take it to a shop and they can do what is calleed a leak down test which is a fancy compression test that offeres slightly different info than a std comp test.

as far as porting and rebuilding stock heads for $700.00 vs buying brand new aluminum heads that are made in the usa which you can run more compression on than iron heads and which have more flow than a set of ported stock heads will have and will only cost you sround $150.00 more, certainly sounds like a difficult decision to me.

barnett468

the thick gooey old oil was probably reducing the oil burning plus it might have had additives like motor honey or bardahl no smoke which are basically really thick oils the mfgs of them use to reduce oil burning . . you could achieve a similar affect by putting in straight 60 weight oil, lol.



you are 100 percent right, and unfortunately, its safer for one to double check any info they get on the internet to verify whether it is correct or not.

"smoke" from water or coolant will always be pure white and will quickly disapate in a few secinds and a few feet of the tail pipe.

smoke from oil will always be a pale blue gray that might be mistaken for condensation by the untrained eye but it will linger around for many seconds like cigarette smoke and can easily drift maybe 60 feet and more and still be visible.

smoke from excessive gas will always be charcoal black but it is just a little rich it can look pale dark gray but it can never look like burning oil.

one problem that can occur is to have burning oil and a rich condition at the same time . . because the excessive gas is much darker than the burning oil color, it can hide or mask the burning but sonce you know that it is rich you simply jey ot properly and if there is burning oil, there will still be light blue/gray smoke

pretty cool huh?
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