[TR] update - the mystery continues

[Rye Livingston]

The mystery continues.

First off my bad.  It's clearly blue-ish smoke, not white.  It's burning oil not water.

So today I cleaned up the plugs and fired it up again to get it up to normal operating temperature, and the smoke was billowing down the street like police had been throwing out tear gas canisters.  Your comment was if it lingers for a moment or three it's oil. This cloud is lingering for 10-20 plus seconds as it was rolling down the street.

Got it warmed up and first did a leak down test.  Rotated the engine to get each piston at the top of it's stroke with the values closed for ignition, then put 100 psi into each cylinder and 1, 3 and 4 held steady at 98psi. #2 held steady at 95psi.  No issues uncovered.

Next was a compression test.  Engine still warm, throttle wide open, all four came up to 150 lbs plus 1-2 lbs. No issues uncovered.

So our thoughts at this point is it can't be a head gasket if we're getting good compression numbers and good leak down test numbers.

Additional info - When I bought this TR4a head for this rebuild, it had been serviced many years ago but never installed on an engine.  The machine shop tore it down and installed new hardened valve seats and checked everything out - supposedly.  I was told the valves, valve springs and valve guides were all good, but now we're thinking this whole thing could be related to bad valve guides.

Not that this should matter, but I also installed a big bore kit so sleeves and pistons are all new.

I expect the head will come off again but hope to zero in on the problem before dismantling it.

Regards,
Rye




On Oct 15, 2015, at 07:46 PM, ptegler <ptegler at verizon.net> wrote:

seconded...
    blue is 'burning' oil, not just super heated oil blowby which is usually white.
If it dissipates almost immediately it's water, if it lingers for a moment or three.... its oil

ptegler

On 10/15/2015 10:51 AM, Brad Kahler wrote:
Lots of white smoke doesn't always indicate water/coolant.  On my TR4 engine that had been freshly rebuilt when I bought it I had billowing clouds of white smoke.  After several head gasket changes I finally realized that the new liners (liner & piston kit) had not been cross hatched so the rings didn't seat.  This allowed for massive amounts of oil to be sucked up and out the exhaust.  Result was white smoke.

So the question is, were the cylinder liners cross hatched so the rings would seal?


On Thu, Oct 15, 2015 at 9:15 AM, Chris Simo <ccsimonsen at gmail.com> wrote:
Is that water or oil?    Lots of white smoke would indicate to me a blown head gasket and water on the plugs.

Did you replace the head gasket with a new one when you fixed the oil ring?   Probably not recommended, but I've reused them (1x)  in the past, but always painted them with the copper coat head gasket paint.

I've blown head gaskets that leaked water into the pistons only -- no water in the oil.  But you may want to check your oil for contamination.








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