my 305 in my 89 formula smokes when i start it. its blue too so..u guys have any experence with this, its prolly the valve seals right? how hard is this to do? thanx for your input

You have the age old problem of dried out valve seals. A few searches will tell you which ones people prefer and I have some steps to installing them in the LT1 cam digest above.

cool, thanx man. sorry posting something thats probably overkill

Mine have been smoking at start up for many years. Over 100K.

at work (i work at a pontiac dealership) i found a bullitin and gotta part number for the umbrella seals that replace the old o-ring ones. all i need is the spring compressor and the fitting to get air in the cyl, and ill be good.

I wouldn't bother with compressed air. It is very hard to make work with the motor in the car. Your air line line and chamber adapter will be in the way of everything. You are much better off using thick nylon rope to shove into the chamber. This way you don't have to do one seal and then tear down and re-set up for the next one.

hmm....yeah sounds good. plus ive got headers there too not fun

I have to do two cars with of seals.... can you explain your nylon rope method in some detail, and how to do it in the most time efficent manner? Thanks....

It is actually pretty easy and I find it much faster than using the air method. You feed the nylon rope into the spark plug hole after you pull the valve covers remove the rocker nuts and take off the rockers. All of the valves will be closed now and seated up in the heads. Then just start feeding in the nylon rope. You can get enough into the chamber where it will act as a support for the valves when you take the springs off. You also won't have to worry about an air leak or something going wrong with your air hose causing the valve to drop into the head. The air adapter will also ram right into the exhaust manifold with the air line connected. There is just not enough room for every cylinder. The air method also doesn't guarantee that the valve will stay up in the head. I have always had problems with exhaust valves. Even with 100+psi of air pressure, I would still push the valve down with the spring compressor. Not only was this very loud (air going in and out of every path of your motor ) but it was incredibly annoying. A few taps with a rubber mallet didn't always un-bind things either. This frustration is with the motor out of the car as well to put things into perspective. The rope will help push up against the valve and ensure that it stays in place enough for you to get the valve locks out. A tiny magnet really helps here. I use a pen magnet that you can get in the checkout line of AutoZone. Even if you leave a few tiny threads of nylon behind be assured that they will vaporize once you fire her back up. Just make sure you use the water proof plastic feeling rope. It is basically the rope they use for marine applications. ¼” or so will suffice.

I like that.... seems like it would work great at keeping all 16 valves up at once and ready to go.

How long does it normally take you to do a seal job? I can't imagine more than about 2-3 hours, valve cover off to on.

I can do a valve seal job in about three hours or so. You will spend more time crawling around the engine bay than you will with the actual work . If you thought installing spark plugs was tricky than you will love feeding string into the chambers . This method is far more forgiving in the end though. You can have the valve covers and rockers off in a few minutes. It is the organization of valvetrain parts and planning for the next steps (nylon string placement) that take the most time.

anyone have a part # for the valve seals?

You can go more than one way with valve seals. I would spend some time using the search function to read up on others experiences with this matter. I run intake seals on both valves.

Yeah mine were toast also until the head gasket blew so now the engine is no longer running no need for valve seals just upgrade to a 350 lol!!

part number for the new unbrella ones is 12511890.

I have the same thing happen. But it's only if I let the car sit for a day or more. If I go to work and leave for lunch there is no smoke.

You have bad valve seals as well. When the motor sits oil drains away from the seals and they harden up. When you start the motor oil slips right past them until the heat of the engine swells them up a bit. Even at that you are still burning trace amounts of oil that you can't see out your tail pipe.