O.k. this question is simple, ive noticed that the warmer it is outside, my car can sit for about 30 minutes then on startup, depending on how hot it is, the car will give a puff of blue smoke. In the winter it'd be a quick puff and that would be it, but now its getting warmer, if i give it any throttle while it sits there warming up it'll puff some blue smoke out. My oil levels never seem to get below the full line. What is happening here? Is the oil breaking down due to the warm temps? By the way, im running some crappy mobil 1 20-50. Its not the synthetic, its just the regular 1.35 a quart junk.

 

The simple answer is when its warm outside your oil isnt as thick as it is when the engines cold and is able to pass throught the valve guides or rings quicker.


SSC

 

I have the same exact problem. The temperature here has gone up around 20 degrees average and the hotter it gets, the more smoke. It's valve guides.

Now.. how do we fix it? Is there something we can pour in? (I hate pouring crap in my engine.) Or is it something we could live with until I buy new aluminum heads? Does it cause buildup on the pistons or valves?

 

wait untill you change the heads

 

Vavle guides and seals are just an irritation, not a problem. Especially if you aren't burning alot of oil.

 

Valve guide seals would probably fix the problem but until then use a thicker oil. If you use the reccomended 10/30 try some 15/40 or 20/50.

 

yikes, i am using 20/50........

 

yes, everbody is right with the valve guides and temperature/viscosity thing. changing them is fairly straight forward if you have an afternoon. you will need to be able to compress the spring and hold the valve up while you change the seal. to compress the the sping, you have two options. they are: a vise grips type device that is made to clamp down. the bad part about this is that you have to be able to get one end in the runners. ie. pull the exhaust and intake. the second is this slick litle device that screws onto your rocker stud and you use and a lever. you only need to pull your rocker arms which is much less work and cheaper. to hold the valve up, there are also two metheods. the first, put something through the spark plug hole and rotate the engine by hand until the piston is pushing the piece into the valve and physically holding it up. i don't recomend this, because you can damage spark plug hole threads and the whole sticking forign objects where they don't belong thing. a better alternative is to put the pistion at the top (it doesn't matter which stroke you are on because you should have both rockers removed and thus the cylinder sealed.) and put an air chuck into the spark plug hole. hitch up an air compressor with about 90 psi and the air pressure will hold the valve up. it is a must that you have the pistion up otherwise if you do knock the valve loose, it will drop all the way into your cylinder necessitating the pulling of the head.

when doing this, you should also inspect the condition of your keepers and valve springs. if you are going to step up to a bigger cam soon or your springs have a lot of miles on them, it might be a good idea to upgrade them so the weak springs don't limit your revs.

jess