While smoke at morning

[wiswind]

Then you know that it is going into the engine.
There are tests, which I am not up on, that can be done to determine what is the cause of the leakage.
You will want to know which cylinder, or if it is more than one cylinder, the specific cause of the leak at that point(s).
Point being, you want to do these tests before tearing apart the motor.

[96wWindstar180K]

Thsu
A problem on high mileage engines is valve guide seals. If you are using oil and the smoke is generally a blueish grey your burning oil. White smoke is almost always indicative of coolant. Does the exhaust smell like antifreeze? Valve guide seals or even rings are not necessarily anything to wory about other than the smoke unless the van starts to run bad. You must watch the oil level. I would suggest as Wiswin has many of times to send a sample of oil in to Blackstone Labrotories and find if there is any antifreeze or excessive wear. Send it by Fedex or Ups and it will get there faster and you can get your results in a few days. They will tell you what kind of wear the van has recieved. If your bad about changing the oil or you bought it used and you dont know how it was taken care of that can be a cause of the rings sticking. Varnish builds in the engine and makes them stick. There are 3 rings on a normal piston. Top ring and center are generally considered compression rings while the bottom is considered the oil ring. It is different shape thicker with a cage around it. The oil ring is the one that generally sticks. You can generally discover a bad ring buy compression test. It wont always tell if the other rings are working properly. My advice oil sample first and then let us know after. Another thought as Wiswin said sparkplugs will tell the story also. A light brown whitish plug will tell you its burning clean. A black carbon substance is burning rich. An oil fouled plug is sort of like a rich burning plug only not as sooty and may have a blue cast to it. If antifreeze is leaking into the combustion chamber you might get a light greenish tinge. Post back with any findings and we will advise.

[huskerdooo]

I recently had the same problem on my 99 with blue smoke. If was caused by a defective pcv valve.

Replaced it and the smoke went away.

I had a 96 winnie with a small head gasket type leak issue that appeared around 90k. Smoked white until it warmed up. They wanted 1300 to fix it. I found that I could get a remanuf engine for twice that, so I decided to ride it out. The thing very slowly used coolant, but I only had to add every 3-4 months. Ended up doing nothing and sold the thing with 144K or so. I am so glad I did not fix it. They probably would have done more harm than good to try to fix it.

I say if the oil is not getting corrupted by coolant, and if you do not have to add very much, ride it out.

[12Ounce]

huskerdoo,
I appreciate that info on your PCV valve problem. I had suggested the PCV as a possible problem ... but I was going on theory alone, no experience.

It stands to reason though, that if the PCV valve stuck open or the internal spring was defective, the engine intake would be flooded with excess crankcase oil during low speed (high vacuum) operation.

[thsu]

Thanks for the reply.

Seems like that to replace the PCV valve is a good bet. I will do it this weekend and see how it goes. I was almost to drive to the mechanics for the fix ($1500 )

Is there any picture that I can have for a reference? Is there anything that I should be aware of?

Thanks for the suggesion.

thsu

[thsu]

OK, here is an update.

Went to a Ford dealer and get a PCV valve for ~$12 dollars. Unplug the PCV valve and replace the new one. It reduces the smoke significantly. The old one is very tight and seems the spring is stuck. Instead, the new one has some freedom to move. This may be the cause of the strong vacuum at the cold start and thus cause unnecessary oil flooding as 12Ounce suggested.

I will see how it goes this week. If it can hold on for a week, I may have solved the problem.

Thank 12Ounce and huskerdooo for the sharp suggestion and the others' help.


thsu