blue smoke! not good

[ctskier]

When i start my car in the morning, blue smoke will come out of the pipe for about 200 seconds. I think i need new gaskets but dont know where to start.
Please help

[Dan89rs]

Originally Posted by ctskier

When i start my car in the morning, blue smoke will come out of the pipe for about 200 seconds. I think i need new gaskets but dont know where to start.
Please help

mine does this too. i got a 89 305. ive been told thats its just oil leaking through the worn valve guides into the cylinders. as long as it quits after a few seconds id think it be okay. just check your oil level every now and again.

how many miles does this engine have? i think this is common in high mileage vehicles. but if you ever get white smoke im pretty sure thats coolant meaning leaking head gaskets or exessive wear internally. someone else correct me if im wrong please.

[CamarosRsweet94]

I would agree, blue smoke would lead me to think oil being burned. I would think white would be coolant too. Oh, and I'm sure this was a typo but it made me laugh, 200 seconds? Not 3 Mins and 33 seconds? J/K

[Dan89rs]

lol i think he meant 20 seconds, i was gonna ask but i knew what he meant. and i think it would be 3 min and 20 sec. but thats beside the point.

[CamarosRsweet94]

Oh yeah, 3:20 my bad. I'm really good at math by the way. About the smoke I would definately be concerned about it but it happens to engines after a while. My winter beater has 196,000 on it and it does that pretty much every morning when I start it up. I'm not sure what can be done to fix the problem short of rebuilding the engine.

[ctskier]

yes 200 was a typo.lol
thanx for the help. i might change the head gsket and see what happens

[Morley]

It isn't the gaskets, its the valve stem oil seals

[harleyman02]

you can change the stem oil seals in the car

[Dan89rs]

i think you can have a shop drill/take out the old guides and replace them. dont quote me on that.

[Morley]

Originally Posted by Dan89rs

i think you can have a shop drill/take out the old guides and replace them. dont quote me on that.

Ummmm...Why? Its the little "o" ring seals on the valve stems that are leaking. With age and heat they get hard and shrink away from the stem and eventually break apart, letting oil down into the cylinders.
And there are no guides to remove from a stock head, they are just a machined hole for the valve stem...You can either have them knurled or have the hole bored out and a phosphor-bronze guide frozen and pressed in, then honed to final size...IF the iron guides give out...in about 1,000,000 miles or so.

[harleyman02]

the process for changing the valve stem seals in the car is not that hard. if you would like i could send the info to you. or post it here

[Dan89rs]

Originally Posted by Morley

Ummmm...Why? Its the little "o" ring seals on the valve stems that are leaking. With age and heat they get hard and shrink away from the stem and eventually break apart, letting oil down into the cylinders.
And there are no guides to remove from a stock head, they are just a machined hole for the valve stem...You can either have them knurled or have the hole bored out and a phosphor-bronze guide frozen and pressed in, then honed to final size...IF the iron guides give out...in about 1,000,000 miles or so.

oh... my bad. im not suprised that i was wrong considerring my source. but that is what i was told. but i believe morley knows a thing or 2 more than me. lol.

[Rally Sport]

Okay I was reading over at this site and it says:

Finally, there is blue smoke. This is oil. It's probably the valve seals and/or guides which need to be replaced. The seals/guides leak oil into the combustion chamber while the car sits. Next time you start it up, the oil burns off resulting in smoke with a definite blue tint/color. Fixing the problem can be pretty expensive. Although if it's the valve seals, many mechanics have a tool that blows air into the combustion chamber via the spark plug hole which allows the valve seals to be removed without removing the entire head. But it's still expensive. If the car isn't burning a large amount of oil, then it's probably not worth fixing.

[Vortec350S10]

yeah I wouldn't worry about it. If it doesn't burn oil after startup your making a big deal out of it. Like they said this is common in a lot of GM engines with miles on them. Just look at as being "prelubed" before every cold start up, and you might kill a few misquitos...