Car troubles

[Ashley Eclipse99]

I have an eclipse 99 non-turbo, 2 liter. I had a problem with it over heating and this morning it went all the way to red got it fixed and is now blowing blue smoke. What would be the cause of this and how do i fix it? seems like the belts squeak more, runs pretty well...blue smoke has gone down to very little. should i be worried? any help would be great.

[gthompson97]

Blue smoke means its burning oil. Have a compression check done and try changing the oil. My guess is that when they fixed it, they got oil into the cylinders. Does it smoke any more or less at any certain time (ie. more at startup?)

PS. Welcome to AF! Also, next time try to put this into the correct sub-forum so the mods don't have to do so much moving. Thanks.

EDIT: How long did it stay on red? And I'm wondering how they "fixed it?" Usually when a car is overheated bad the head warps, which means removing the head and getting it planed flat again. I'm wondering how they "fixed" your car?

[JScharF]

How far did you drive it overheated? I made the mistake of not stopping as soon as I saw it... Didn't want to be late for work, little did I know it would cost me several months worth of work to fix it because of the problems I had caused... (lucky it wasn't worse)

[Shpyder]

Hi, and welcome to AF.

+1 on the burning oil part, blue smoke is a classic clue to that. Also, do you know what exactly they "fixed"? If the smoke is subsiding, I wouldn't worry about it as long as the car runs okay, and the temperature needle stays put.

EDIT: lol, didnt mean to mouth off exactly what Garrett said, I just saw his post.

[gthompson97]

Originally Posted by Shpyder

EDIT: lol, didnt mean to mouth off exactly what Garrett said, I just saw his post

Haha...I guess great minds think alike! I even like how you put "fixed" in quotations like I did.

[Ashley Eclipse99]

Well, new radiator hose, cap, thermostat, and oil change, with a flush of the radiator. Run great now, started it cold this morning and no smoke and no smell of oil. I pushed it hard and the result was the same. do you think i'm in the clear about engine damage? when running it vibrates more then it did, and my belt is still squeaky. Other than that runs great. To the red question, as soon as it went it was a matter of 2 sec before it was off. i waited 20-30mins and started it to see the temp it was normal and drove two blocks to the auto place. could i have been burning a little bit of old oil in that cloud of smoke( maybe clearing stuff out)?

[Ashley Eclipse99]

how do i put pics on and where is the right place to put threads?

[david-b]

Best place is like photobucket or so. Much better and easier than AFs Gallery.

[gthompson97]

If it was only in the red for a mere 2 seconds then I wouldn't really worry about anything, especially if it doesn't smoke at all or anything anymore. Just a quick check, when it's cold (or cool enough so you don't burn yourself) pull off the coolant cap (with the motor running) and see if you can see bubbles (don't get these confused with "ripples" from the shaking of the motor). If bubbles are coming from the head side of the thermostat housing then chances are you warped the head, but if bubbles are not present, you should be fine.

As far as the threads go, we have subforums at the top of the main page; Appearance, Performance, and Problem Diagnosis. We try to tell members to put the threads in their respected categories as best possible, so the mods don't have to be moving a bunch of threads all the time. Notice how yours is now in the Problem Diagnosis subforum? A mod moved it. Thanks and good luck with the car.

[spyderturbo007]

I would still take a look at the compression. Anytime you overheat a motor, you run the risk of warping the head. You could have one or more cylinders beyond the service limit. Better safe then sorry.

[NOFX0617]

As far as your belt squeaking goes. When I had my non turbo eclipse that thing squeaked all the freakin time. I never really found a way to get rid of it permanently. For a while I was using some lubrication and spraying it on the pulleys and it would go away only to return a few weeks later. Good luck with it though.

[gthompson97]

Using that belt dressing on such things like that usually just make it worse in the long run and reduce the life of the bet. I have never and will never use that....shit. Just make sure the belts are adjusted to the correct tension and that there isn't anything leaking on them to make them squeal. I've had my RS for 4-5 years now and the only time I ever had a problem with belt squealing is because the water pump was leaking coolant on to the belts. My buddies never have any trouble with belt squealing either. 99% of the time I think it's an adjustment/tension issue.