Engine Smoking

[84porsche]

Well my time has come to likely drop the engine and I honestly have never done any real work on a car. I am down to driving my car once/twice a week but now there is so much smoke coming from the engine bay. I am pretty sure the oil is dripping down from the top somewhere and pooling there and when driven dropping on the exhaust. After about 20 or so miles of hard driving the smoke is gone.

What I am possibly looking at for cost/parts, any obvious diagnosis? I am thinking about taking her in to the shop to do.

[slodave]

Chris,

Look back to my thread...
First clutch replacement

Is there a lot of oil collecting in the engine tin? Post some pics.

Dave

[Aurel]

Could be the oil breather gasket, the oil pressure switch, or the oil thermostat o-ring. Both parts cost a few bucks, but require a $1500-2000 engine drop to access. Needless to say that if you have a garage, you could save a lot by dropping the motor yourself.
Below is a picture of what my motor looked like after I dropped it, with leaks at the breather gasket. Also, those leaks had gunked my oil cooler, and made the car run too hot in the summer.

Aurel

[88911coupe]

Mine was the thermostat oring which I replaced just doing a partial drop. It was the easiest one for me to reach and just took a chance that that was the one leaking and I got lucky. There's a lot of stuff in the way back there, even with a partial drop.

[efhughes3]

Those are all some of the usual suspects, but it could be leaking a lot of places.

Mine had one of the oil cooler seals go bad a couple of years ago, that was my big leak.

[wmunchovie]

This will sound way too simple; if you overfill the oil tank by not checking level while hot, it will burp out the air-horn....

munchovie.