Hey all in pintoland,
My pinto is smoking a lot out the exhaust. Couldn't tell the color, but it doesn't smell like oil & the oil level is not going down much- I do have a bad rear seal so the level is low cuz of that. Anyways, could I be running way rich & if so how can I fix it? Need help please.. tired of smoking up the neighborhood.
Not knowing the color of the smoke makes it a little more difficult.Check the fuel enrichment valve in the bottom of the float bowel and see if it is stuck down,or open.Also check the air bleeds and emulsion tubes for clogs.both these can cause an over rich condition.Also are there times it smokes more than others,and what is the situation at that time,down hill coast,power on, idling.An old head can also cause that problem.We picked up a 77 crusin wagon recently that smoked pretty bad,New head,no smoke,so you might want to look at that also.
One thing I forgot to mention on the fuel enrichment valve.Check the diaphragm that actuates the valve it could have a tear or hole in it in which case the valve would run open all the time.
If it doesn't smell like oil and you can't tell what color the smoke is, there's a good chance that what you're seeing is coolant.
If so, it could be coming from a head gasket leak (fairly common, especially with high mileage or engines over 10 years old still using the original head gasket, or 10 years or so on a replacement one), a crack from a water passage to a combustion area, or even coolant getting into the oil and being vaporized from engine heat during normal engine operation.
For the uninitiated:
The primary reason head gaskets fail is coolant deterioration. Coolant that hasn't been changed often enough, is no longer able to prevent deterioration of the metal inside of the gasket, as well as lacking the same ability to protect the other internal engine passages through which it circulates. (Heater cores tend to "go bad" for this same reason, and at a similar age.) This is especially aggravated by electrolysis of dissimilar metals between the head and the block when one is iron and the other aluminum, (or a heater core with brass or aluminum and solder connections) for example. This is followed by overheating/head warpage, and then other factors such as improper head removal and/or improper retorquing during installation, poor installation with debris on one of the mating surfaces, lack of head resurfacing when a head is removed after many yeras and it no longer has a good enough enough surface to make a good, long lasting seal, etc.
Coolant leakage from the engine getting into the exhaust, in a significant quantity, (by whatever method) tends to produce a white fog, similar to what you would see from a CO2 fire extinguisher being fired, but with a heavy sweetish smell. Many eengines produse a small amount of whitish looking fog when they first start up, especially in Winter or with high humidity conditions, but this would be denser and continue with a warm engine.
A couple of things to check, if you don't have much equipment:
If the leak is directly from a coolant passage to a combuston chamber, the leakage will be GREATER when the cooling system is under pressure, so you can do a rough check by removing the radiator cap (and a little coolant) and then running the engine until it is warmed up. Watch for the "smoke" under these conditions. If it ISN'T present with a warm engine and no cooling system pressure present, stop the engine, top off the radiator if necessary, and then restart it. If the smoke then shows up shortly thereafter or is present in greater quantity with the cooling system under pressure , that should answer the question of what is happening.
When the engine is cold:
One easy way to check for a coolant leak into a combustion chamber is to pull the spark plugs and examine them. Ifthis has been going on for some time, the odds are strong that one or 2 adjacent cylinders' spark plugs will be noticibly cleaner than the others.
Next step would be to do a compression check. 2 adjacent cylinders with low and identical readings points most commonly points to a head gasket leak between cylinders, which sometimes will involve a water passage.
If you had access to a leak down compression tester, pumping the cylinders one at a time (when at TDC and the valves for that cylinder closed), up to anything approaching normal compression pressure, would rapidly push air into the cooling system if there was a leak from the cooling system into a cylinder, or into the oil if that is where the leak path exists, or the exhaust for the same reason.
OR
If you had access to a cooling system pressure tester, all you would have to do is to pump up the radiator to the normal pressure range and watch for a pressure drop, which would indicate any leakage. If it was an external leak you would see it, if it leaked into the oil system, draining some of the oil would show it, if it leaked into the exhaust, starting the engine would show a goodly amount of liquid coolant when the engine started.
On a related note, if you have a goodly amount of engine "blowby", from a poor compression ring to cylinder wall seal, (common on high mileage engines and those which have major cylinder wear or piston rings that have either lost tension, broken or are stuck in the piston grooves) what you may be seeing is the result of compressed fuel/air mixture sneaking through the weak seal, resulting in a mixture of this gasoline with the engine oil, diluting it, which is then made MUCH more thin, and can sneak past the oil control piston rings more easily and in greater quantity, and be vaoprized there as well as being vaporized more readily by "normal" internal engine temperatures.
If THIS is what is happening, and it is prevalent, you should be able to tell by examining the oil for viscosity and SMELLING the oil for the presence of gasoline.
But if it's coolant you can smell it in the exhaust.if it's blow by you will see a marked increase after deceleration.The vacuum created will zoop oil into the cylinders the next time you accelerate the car will smoke real bad depending on the lengh of time in deceleration,going down long hills.We learned about this from the vega in the 70s (aluminum cyl walls).run a compression check,and if you have a vacuum gauge put it to work,You can learn allot about your engines condition with it.
The car smokes at idle, & doesn't seem to at other engine speeds. It doesn't smell like coolant at all, nor like oil, which made me think an overly rich situation. I rebuilt the carb a couple months back & all seemed to be going well, but i had not really let it idle much since I reset the timing & idle.
One thing-
You said that the oil level isn't going down much. With a significant amount of blowby or excessive leakage of raw gas through the carburetor, it would be entirely possible for the engine oil level to remain fairly constant or even RISE, due to the added volume of gasoline being mixed with the oil.
If you have a traceable leak, such as from the rear main seal area, it should be easy to check the thickness of oil that'scoming out there, to see how it compares with new oil.
BTW,
If you have a well functioning catalytic convertor, it would be much harder to smell a slow coolant leak or see evidence of oil/gas burning than if there is a poorly funtioning one or none present....
You may be lucky and simply have
1. a worn engine that is starting to lose compression
2. one that needs valve stem oil seals
3. both
4. a lot of condensation in your oil from short trips,that doesn't get completely burned off from engine heat before the next start.
For reference:
On a catalytically equiped engine, a small or even a moderate amount of oil burning, (such as from leaking oil seals) may not even BE visible. And with a nod to earthquake, oil stem seal leakage is ALSO frequently only visible at idle speeds or on sudden decelleration if you have a on a non catalytic engine, or one which does not have a decelleration valve or a system that slows the closing of the throttle, instead of allowing it to quickly close.
the oil in my car is not thinned at all, nor does it smell of gas. There is no converter on my car & as stated in my previous reply, it is only smoking at idle, but DOES NOT I repeat DOES NOT smell like burning oil or coolant. I'm sure it's an overly rich problem, I just don't know what to do to fix it & why it would be smoking as it is.