White smoke??

[Bluebelles Mom]

Another question for you guys. I notice a bit of white smoke coming from the exhaust. Not billing clouds but enough to notice when stopped. What should that be telling me? Valves? Rings? Low tire pressure? (just kidding)

[dlb]

a bit of white smoke at startup is normal but if you're getting it consistently while driving i believe that is a sign of condensed water in the exhaust--which would coming from a bad head gasket. once again, i'm talking about something i'm not super familiar with so i'll let the other guys chime in.

[splatterdog]

Winter maybe? Are other peoples tailpipes smoking too? Losing coolant?

Aside from Petros, I've found the head gaskets on these to be pretty durable. My 84 had a couple vicious overheats almost 100k ago and still is going strong. One of them even bubbled all the paint off the upper rad tank.

[deejay1272]

If the white smoke eventually subsides after driving around a bit, then you may have worn out valve stem seals. Replacing the valve stem seals is a fairly easy job to do (I've seen some excellent tutorials on Youtube). As others have mentioned, white smoke can also be a sign of coolant seeping into the combustion chamber (blown head gasket). You'll know that this is an issue if you notice that your engine is running hot or occasionally causes an overheat condition.

These are the first two things that pop into my mind. I still consider myself to be an amateur (actually, I prefer "aspiring"!) mechanic so I'll yield to some of the others here on this Forum as well....

[Bluebelles Mom]

Well I have had radiator issues which culminated today with the radiator giving up the ghost. Sudden huge plume of steam from under the hood and the temp guage suddenly shooting to the top of the mark. Got her pulled off the road and called the guy who sold it to me as I knew he had a parts car. Hoped he had a spare radiator and he did. He was nice enough to come get me and take me to my volunteer gig then swap out the radiator for me.

The white smoke has been apparent since I picked up the car with no overheating issues until today. So what I am hearing is that to sort this out the head is going to have to come off either way...gasket or valve stem seals.

Next question is: How serious is this? Can I drive the car for awhile as is or should I tear into it as soon as possible? She did stay right on the center mark of the temp guage with the new (used) radiator in place on the way home today.

[dlb]

i think right in the middle of the temp gauge is just a little too hot for me since mine usually runs just below the icon on the gauge. i think if you're just doing short drives, keep a jug of water with you at all times, and keep an eye on the temp, you should be fine.

[Petros]

too bad to hear about that, but my experience with these tercels is if it gets overheated the head gasket is damaged enough to need to be replaced. But it sound like that has been an issue for your car since you got it, so it may have already been that way before you owned it. I drove mine for almost a year with a leaking head gasket, it is just a matter of how fast it consumes coolant. It can get bad enough where it will not even run, that means you have been pushing it a long time. My engine has been heavily tweaked to improve the power output and I was have a heck of a time keeping a good head gasket in it, so I mostly drove it with a leaky head gasket until I developed some modifications to improve the durability. Fortunately it is not a costly repair to do yourself, but it is a major job. Though this car is much easier than most to do a head gasket job on, you can read about it, and all of the methods and mods I developed at this thread here: http://www.tercel4wd.com/forums/viewtop ... f=7&t=6059

BTW, there is no reliable test to know your head gasket is really damaged, I knew it was consuming water daily, yet the compression test showed normal compression on all cylinders. If you remove the spark plugs (the number one most likely) and inspect the piston tops with a flash light through the spark plug holes, the one with the leaky cylinder would have a clean piston top (the vaporizing coolant "steam cleans" the top of the piston). Even than it can be hard to tell.

Good luck.

[takza]

Next question is: How serious is this? Can I drive the car for awhile as is or should I tear into it as soon as possible? She did stay right on the center mark of the temp guage with the new (used) radiator in place on the way home today.

If it is a head gasket leak...and it looks like it.....you'll probably have an exhaust into coolant leak...which can quickly overheat it due to all the added heat into the coolant. There is the "bubble test"...where you take the rad cap off when engine is cold and look for a stream of bubbles...works on most cars.

When a head gasket really goes it will start blowing coolant out of the coolant tank...at least on some cars.


Might last awhile if you do two things...use a double dose of stopleak and loosen the rad cap just enough to avoid building up pressure. Might get you thru the winter at least.

[splatterdog]

BTW, there is no reliable test to know your head gasket is really damaged.

http://www.sjdiscounttools.com/lis75500.html

Readily available at most auto part stores too.

[dlb]

hey killjoy (hee hee), for the bubble test should the car be idling while still cold?

[Petros]

BTW, there is no reliable test to know your head gasket is really damaged.

http://www.sjdiscounttools.com/lis75500.html

Readily available at most auto part stores too.

interesting devise, but it still will not tell you if the head gasket it bad or leaking, only that you have exhausts gases coming out somewhere. that could be a head gasket (and most likely), but could also be from a number of other souses too.

One easy test I discovered accidentally, remove the number one spark plug and have someone crank the engine watching to see if anything comes out. DO NOT stand directly in front of the spark plug hole, coolant, or coolant vapor will spray out of the spark plug hole like a geyser.

[takza]

hey killjoy (hee hee), for the bubble test should the car be idling while still cold?

You can rev it up some...might see more bubbles that way.

[splatterdog]

Yes Petros. It doesn't tell you exactly where it's coming from. It will tell you if the head needs to come off. 99% of combustion leaks are head related. The only cracked blocks I have ever seen had been froze from running straight water.

A $30 tool is pretty cheap. It could be easily sold after testing for 15. So $15 to figure out if you need to spend much more time and money would be well spent. I'm surprised you don't keep one in the glove box.

Pulling ALL the spark plugs will surely tell you if you have a leak in to a cylinder. Both for your geyser and looking for an extra clean piston. It won't tell you if you have a crack in an exhaust port.

The only other tool for testing this while still assembled would be an emissions gas analyzer. Personally I wouldn't risk damaging an expensive machine with coolant ingestion when a cheap simple tool is available. I got mine over 20 years ago.

[splatterdog]

One last thing on those combustion leak detectors. Even when I'm completely sure I have a negative, I always test the fluid by "sniffing" the tail pipe with the engine still running. The fluid should turn yellow pretty quick. My tester is a squeeze bulb style tester, making that final test a little easier than that lisle tool that uses the engine for vacuum.

I have an older version of this- http://www.google.com/products/catalog? ... DUQ8wIwAA#

Check craigslist or local pawn shops for a used deal. Some part stores may even rent one.

[Petros]

you know, for as much trouble as I have had with head gaskets that might not be a bad set-up. If they are about $50 new, I wonder if I can find it for about half that (or less) used somewhere. than of course, I just drive it until it will not go any longer, and than change the head gasket. that way I get more miles per head gasket.