OH WHAT NOW?!? Bad idle and white smoke! - Page 3

JonA · 12-19-2007, 02:14 PM

If you have oil leaking onto the outside of the exh manifoild it is the cam tower gasket. Put that on the list and do the little rear gasket and the camshaft seal at the same time.
From the pictures it almost looks like the oil was on the part of the plug outside of the engine, like it was pooling on top of the plug. If the plugs are not tightened you can get over time a little blowby that will coat the outside of the plugs with a oily substance. Or, and this is a long shot, the other side of the cam tower gasket might be leaking and the oil is finding it's way down into the plugs. I would guess if that were happening you would see the oil on the outside of the head when you pulled the plugs.
Do a compression test, do a leakdown test. Pressurize the cooling system and see if you lose any fluid.
Dont pull the head for a new gasket gasket until you are a little more sure that is your problem. That's a can-o-worms you do'nt want to open unless you have to. You don't have a lot of the big indicators; milkshake, overheating, big loss of coolant, hydrolock.
Keep us posted. Good luck.

Jon

myskyon · 12-19-2007, 04:27 PM

OK this is starting to scare me as people are saying the AOS is bad. or the seals are bad. it very well could be the turbo seals are going and that is where the oil is coming from. there is a very simple check for this. and that is to remove the breather hose off the J-boot and see if it has oil dripping out of it. if its dry as a bone then your turbo is the culprit.
I have an 87 951 that the turbo seals are bad on, blows smoke under boost, but you cant see it through the black smoke. Also I have another 951 that had a bad cam tower gasket. leaked oil onto the top of the motor as well as a little down the back. replacement is not hard. took about 4 hours being very very carefully and BS'ing a lot.

CJFusco · CJFusco's Garage

Well, it looks like it's going to be a big job in any case - we just aren't positive which big job it's gonna be. The consensus seems to be that it's the head gasket, AND probably an oil leak, either cam tower, turbo, or AOS.

I probably won't be able to get into the garage to poke around until after Christmas, but I still want to get underneath the car and see if I can tell where the oil leak is coming from.

But please, by all means, continue this debate. The more information I can get, the better. Right now I am planning on doing the head gasket, and will probably check out the AOS and the turbo seals while I'm in there. Luckily, as long as the Volvo's on the road, there's no rush *knocks wood*

Thanks to all who have imputed and will imput.

Razorback1980 · Razorback1980's Garage

myskyon....I hear what you are saying about the turbo seals but those are different symptoms from what I remember reading. The smoke wasn't so much under boost as first starting and at idle, plus most of the plugs looked pretty good which leads me to believe it's not the turbo. I think there are two problems. I think Jon is right about the cam tower leaking on the outside of the plugs which could probably be fixed by retorqueing the cam tower bolts. I think that is one issue....but the tip of the plug on number four looked black. Only two ways into the cylinder that I can think of without something broken...valve guide seals and through the intake valve. I can't think of a way that the cam tower can leak oil into a cylinder and the theory of it being an exhaust leak with the oil leaking back into the cylinder doesn't sound likely as the oil would have to run uphill and the air pressure is inside the header blowing the oil out of the cylinder not into it. IF and I said IF the plug is black on the tip, then there is oil or coolant inside the cylinder and the puzzling part is why only cylinder 4 which would pretty much eliminate it coming through the intake manifold or all plugs would be as black as number 4. That's what makes me think it's a head gasket (although I'm hoping I'm wrong!)...BUT I think Jon has some great advice...don't tear into it before you find the problem...do the compression and leak down test along with the coolant pressure test. Those will help you find the problem for sure.

CJFusco · CJFusco's Garage

Tom - I'd rather KNOW it's the head gasket then not know what's wrong at all. At least then I can start to plan accordingly...

Razorback1980 · Razorback1980's Garage

Good plan...let us know if we can help you at all...Try to have a Merry Christmas although I know it's hard when the Porsche isn't working like it should. Maybe Santa will bring you some parts to fix it with.

Take care CJ.

myskyon · 12-20-2007, 07:42 AM

HG repair guide well nize just posted this up in the turbo section so i thought it would be a good addition to this thread too.

CJFusco · CJFusco's Garage

Very cool link, thank you for that. I will use that and Clarks Garage together, they both have good info.

Tom M'Guiness also lists coolant spilling out of the overflow tube after hard driving as a head gasket symptom; as I said before, there was a small puddle of coolant on the garage floor on the morning that my car started acting funny. Sure enough, the overflow tube was wet at the end. This, and the other symptoms combined, make me think that it is the head gasket after all.

Compression and leakdown tests will come soon.

bluebullet · 03-17-2008, 09:07 PM

bringing back the thread from the dead, we did a little leakdown testing and the compression numbers confirmed it...dead headgasket

Turbo is clean as a whistle, and has absolutley no shaft play whatsoever.

I will be putting up some pics that I snapped yesterday shortly..

CJFusco · CJFusco's Garage

Matt had me REALLY worried for an hour or so - I guess he was unconvinced that the problem was a head gasket in the first place, so as we were doing compression and leakdown tests he was talking about things like blown rings. Once we heard that coolant burbling during the last cylinder leakdown test we knew for sure; I've never been so happy to see a bad headgasket.

BIG thanks go out to Matt (bluebullet) for giving me a hand with this. I owe him a HUGE favor.

bluebullet · 03-18-2008, 03:52 PM

and here are some pics...I wasnt able to take so much because of really dirty hands...

CJFusco · CJFusco's Garage

Hah weird that my driver's side headlight bucket looks like it's a different shade of red in some pics. It must be the way the light is hitting it or something...

drift a 944 · 10:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CJFusco

Hah weird that my driver's side headlight bucket looks like it's a different shade of red in some pics. It must be the way the light is hitting it or something...

chances are high that it was repainted at some point in its life. That and the drivers side fender as well. Its almost unavoidable though, unless the painter had done a "fade" in which he would fade the color (or at least the clear) into the surrounding panels.

anyway, to stay on topic....

heres what happened to me on the track once, Im pretty sure the AOS actually sucked up some liquid oil and dumped it all into the intake/vacuum system. I was going around a big turn very fast with my oil level topped off, so the oil probably sloshed up enough to get sucked up and burned up in the motor.

the oil was literally soaking in my air filter after that. Big mess to clean up all the small parts. What I did though was delete the hose and make a catch can to see if it would happen again. So far so good. As for the oil vapors, they can vent into the atmosphere

yay

would make a great FAIL pic

MrPorsche951 · 04-24-2008, 02:48 PM

I have the same problem. White smoke comes from my engine after 2 min. after start up. It cuts out when I start going in 1st gear. Do you think I can drive it the 5 miles to the auto shop. Also, any idea on what I should tell the tech?

CJFusco · CJFusco's Garage

Well my problem turned out to be a blown head gasket; I'm in the middle of the repair (actually near the end) now. I have a thread tracking my progress...

nynor · 04-25-2008, 09:01 AM

looks like you are making some progress, CJ. strong work.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrPorsche951

I have the same problem. White smoke comes from my engine after 2 min. after start up. It cuts out when I start going in 1st gear. Do you think I can drive it the 5 miles to the auto shop. Also, any idea on what I should tell the tech?

yeah, you can drive it that far. tell the tech that you have white smoke coming out the exhaust, you suspect the head gasket, please do a compression check and leak down test.

welcome to the board.

MrPorsche951 · 04-25-2008, 08:40 PM

The smoke is not comming from the exhaust. It is comming off the engine... oil is dripping on my exhaust from somewhere on the left side of the engine and being burned off.

The engine cuts out when I start going in 1st gear. The car runs fine in all other gears.

Any ideas would be great!!!

CJFusco · CJFusco's Garage

Sounds like you have a bad cam tower gasket. Not as big a deal as the head gasket - as far as major engine parts, only the intake and cam tower have to come off.

MrPorsche951 · 04-25-2008, 09:05 PM

Thank you for your help!!!

Is this the reason why my car stalls/cuts out for a second in 1st gear. The car runs great at higher revs in 1st and all other gears.

CJFusco · CJFusco's Garage

The cam tower gasket would explain why your car has oil dripping on the exhaust manifolds, but I'm not sure about the car cutting out in 1st gear. I suppose it's possible that the two problems are related, but it's also possible you have two unrelated problems occurring simultaneously.