Noticed a little blue smoke on start up the other day. What is the cause of this and should I be concerned about it??

 

The valve seals in your heads are worn, so they leak a bit of oil that has accumulated on them into the combustion chamber while your car sits. Unless it gets really bad there is no reason to worry.

If it's more than "a little bit," and you see it when you shift, be worried about your piston rings.

 

At the moment it is only at start up. The car only has 60,000 miles on it. So hopefully it won't get any worse.

 

My car has 63,000 and does it. It will progressively get worse and will get worse faster if you drive hard. Nothing to worry about though unless you are losing a lot of oil. Just a Chevy thing.

 

my car looses 1.5 quarts of oil per tank of gas.... he he he consider "a little blue smoke" a blessing

 

I was upset about it earlier, but apparently it happens on chevy small block that have over about 50000 miles, becaues the valve stems are not of the best quality. The new ones are something like $15, but it's not worth replacing just them, I guess you should probably do that when (if) you install something else, like new heads...

And try using more viscous oil, don't use synthetic anymore or try getting one of those oils for older engines (i'm trying Valvoline Maxlife 5W-30)

 

I've had the Puff O' Blue ever since I got the car with 115K miles on it 5 years ago. She's up to 127K now, with no considerable change in the Blue. Doesn't seem to eat up a noticible amount of oil either. Maybe I'm just lucky...

 

Mines a 85 305 TPI, 50,000. Bought it from orig owner at 45,000. Has had 'smokey startup" for years he told me. Still does. I even switched from regular Vavoline , which I've swore by for YEARS, to Vavoline Max Life, hoping it would help reduce problem / soften seals. No way. However, I change oil every 3,000, and notice no real reduction in level on the dipstick, either. In other words, that embarassing belch of blue smoke must not be burning as much oil as it would appear to be. Small blocks of this era are famous for poor valve seals. You'd think by this stage of the game, G.M. would have known better than to try to save 50 cents/ unit, or whatever the savings probably was. They obliviously knew better. It somewhat ruins the otherwise fine appearance of a sharp car, if you know what I mean. Still goes like h*ll ,though!

 

i agree with pauls that it ruins the apperance but mine does it to. i really don't care but it is kinda of embarrassing. but its really nothing to worry about.

 

Both my 85 Z-28, 41,000 (sold) and my 87 Iroc 40,000 do the smoke thing, so both age and mileage play a factor. I put 5-30 Mobile 1 synth oil in the Iroc and it really has helped the smoke problem. It's not nearly as bad.

 

The fact that synthetic helps reduce smokey start-up is good to hear. However, I've also read on this sight elsewhere that synthetic can sometimes worsen the problem ,and /or encougage leaks due to the fact that it flows better and can actually loosen up debris in the engine that may actually be "blocking" or "sealing" up stuff. Would anyone else care to comment on this? This seems to be a very relevant topic for alot of 3rd gen people. Input is always welcome! Comments, good / bad /yes /no? Thanks in advance!

 

mine is getting pretty bad. a year ago when i bought the car it didnt do it. now its pretty bad i want to replace them but i dont want to replace heads because i plan on swapping in a 350. i have access to a air compressor and fittings so it shouldnt be to hard to do.

 

here is one link

https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...hreadid=110714

and another

https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...ht=valve+seals