View single post by Ricardo
 Posted: 04-17-2005 04:06 pm
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Ricardo



Joined: 03-13-2005
Location: Miami, Florida USA
Posts: 19
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There are only four things that your engine ( Lotus in a Jensen Healey) could burn and smoke like that.

  1- oil; the smoke would be bluish and your oil level would drop eventually; your spark plugs will have an oily residue at the electrodes and there will be an oily film at your exhaust pipe. Oil could come from valve guides or piston rings that are worn out, the engine breather if it's connected anywhere in the intake system,  a clogged air intake

 

   2- water: the smoke would be very white, there would probably be bubbles in the coolant in your radiator, your coolant level would drop. Water would come from bad head gaskets, cracked or warped heads or block or cracked or perforated liners

    3- Gasoline-you need to burn this in orther for your car to move. kidding aside, if you are burning too much gasoline in your engine, the spark plugs will have a faint smell of gasoline, you'll make a smoke that's whitish/gray and if you have an oil sample inspected, you'll find gas in the oil; in very severe cases of very rich situation, the plugs will foul, will not fire and you are able to smell the fuel in the oil and in the plugs without any difficulty. Too much gas is usually asociated with rich setting of the carburator jets, leaky bowls, too much pump pressure, dirty or otherwise clogged air cleaner, throttles not in sinc., etc.

    4- Brake fluid- if the rear seal in your brake master cylinder is deffective or otherwise leaking and the front seal of the vacuum booster is not up to par, the vacuum diaphragm inside the brake booster will send the brake fluid thru the vacuum hose to the intake manifold and into the combustion chamber of the engine to be mix with the gas/fuel mixture and burned; you'll see a wetness behind the master cylinder in the firewall, the inside of the vacuum hose will be moist and the level of the brake fluid will drop inside the master cylinder reservoir

  Hope this will help you some what with your dilema

                 Ricardo