Pinto Car Club of America

    Well today the little Pinto started smoking. Out the tail pipe. Not thick black smoke. Just gray puffs and a constant haze. More as the throttle comes down rapidly. I would like second opinions. The car has plenty of power though it detonates a little (Timing is a little high) the only weird thing aside from the smoke is a slightly rough idle. I'm thinking rings are on their way out. But what else might cause that? Valve seal? It happened suddenly but maybe the slight pinging was enough to kill a ring or two.    :(

2.0?

Could it be a fuel problem?

I noticed some slight smoking from my tailpipe after converting to my electric pump. My pump is a 5 PSI pump and I currently do not run it with a pressure regulator, so I'm believing it is excessive fuel at the moment since it never smoked prior to the conversion.

I had 3 2.3s suddenly eat valve seals, 2 N/A and one turbo. That is where I would look first.


Bill

If the car is a auto you might have a pen hole in the modulator valve when you get a vacuum signal to it it will draw a trickle of ATF and smoke a odd color... to check for this you disconnect the line to the tranny and cap off the orifice and let it idle a bit ..smoking will stop shortly if this is the issue.

I hope it's something this simple... My 71 was smoking like this for several months before I figured it out...I rebuilt the head and re ringed the car thinking it was seals, head gasket or blow bye. I was wrong.

FrankBoss

Quote from: FCANON on May 14, 2008, 08:39:41 AM
If the car is a auto you might have a pen hole in the modulator valve when you get a vacuum signal to it it will draw a trickle of ATF and smoke a odd color... to check for this you disconnect the line to the tranny and cap off the orifice and let it idle a bit ..smoking will stop shortly if this is the issue.

I hope it's something this simple... My 71 was smoking like this for several months before I figured it out...I rebuilt the head and re ringed the car thinking it was seals, head gasket or blow bye. I was wrong.

FrankBoss

Hey Frank
It stinks that you had to do all that work to find a bad modulator valve.
Doing a compression check is always a good diagnostic step.
GREAT point though...
Hopefully your 2.0 will run better than ever!!!
From Pintony

It's a 2.0 Stick shift.

Ha! OK, Yesterday I did the equivalent of hiring a witch doctor to fix my Pinto. The weird thing is it friggin worked. In a fit of "I don't care" based activity I went down to the local auto store bought a new PCV valve that was the wrong type (Subsequent carb adjusting made it right) A bottle of carb cleaning gas additive and a Gumout brand bottle of no smoke slime. I poured it in got some on my fingers and as I tried to at first shake the goo off it left little stringie trails of  goo streamers in the wake of my passing hand, Good times :) Well the Pinto stopped smoking.... Runs fine... and happily smokes where it should...... It's right rear tire.  ;D