Engine smoking on starting - oil burning off?
08-19-2009, 06:42 PM
#1
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Thread Starter
Engine smoking on starting - oil burning off?
I wonder if anyone can suggest what's likely to be going on here...
My 952 has recently started smoking when the engine is started - I suspect an oil leak of some kind, but before I start digging around in that rather packed engine bay I thought I'd see if the problem sounds familiar to anyone.
• It starts smoking not immediately but within a couple of minutes of starting up, and generally lasts about 5 minutes or a little longer.
• I notice the problem more if the car has been sitting for a few days. If the car has been run in the past 24 hours, I don't think I notice it at all.
• Smoke appears to be coming from (looking from the front of the engine compartment) the left hand side and under the exhaust bits. So my first thought was a hole in the exhaust system somewhere, but all the other things seem to point to something like oil getting burnt off as engine bits come up to temperature.
• I haven't noticed oil under the car (but the street's pretty dirty so I can't be 100% on that).
Paul
My 952 has recently started smoking when the engine is started - I suspect an oil leak of some kind, but before I start digging around in that rather packed engine bay I thought I'd see if the problem sounds familiar to anyone.
• It starts smoking not immediately but within a couple of minutes of starting up, and generally lasts about 5 minutes or a little longer.
• I notice the problem more if the car has been sitting for a few days. If the car has been run in the past 24 hours, I don't think I notice it at all.
• Smoke appears to be coming from (looking from the front of the engine compartment) the left hand side and under the exhaust bits. So my first thought was a hole in the exhaust system somewhere, but all the other things seem to point to something like oil getting burnt off as engine bits come up to temperature.
• I haven't noticed oil under the car (but the street's pretty dirty so I can't be 100% on that).
Paul
08-19-2009, 07:29 PM
#2
Race Director
my Turbo S has a pan gasket leak that dump oil on the crossover pipe. When the pipe gets hot the oil burns off. This happens not right away, but after 2-3 minutes and then burns off. The longer it sits the more smoke there is from the oil.
08-22-2009, 01:08 PM
#6
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Thread Starter
Had a good look around, and it's not the cam housing gasket - despite being pretty old judging by the state of the edges there's no trace of a leak there. So I cleaned up the dirty, oily undertray and lower bits of the engine... hopefully when I look again in a couple of days there'll by an obvious source for new oil.
08-22-2009, 02:39 PM
#7
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The fact that it seems worse if the car has been standing and is absent within 24hrs or when driving suggests this is not related to the pressurised oil loop, unless it is a seal or component which expands and seals on heating and closes the leakage, but when allowed to cool and stand then shrinks and opens the leak point.
Might be a good idea to check head gasket since you are sure it's not the cam tower one.
Might be a good idea to check head gasket since you are sure it's not the cam tower one.
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08-23-2009, 01:52 PM
#8
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Thread Starter
Well there's new oil under there today... looks rather like it's the sump gasket that's leaking. (On reflection the "not happening within 24 hours of last driving" thing isn't such a hard and fast rule as I may have implied - I think it's a matter of degree.) I'm guessing that may not be the easiest DIY engine job to tackle, but we'll see.
And totally off-topic, but I just saw a guy up the road with the oldest car I have ever seen being driven on a public road - a 1902 Panhard-Levassor. Here's hoping my Porsche will make it that far...
And totally off-topic, but I just saw a guy up the road with the oldest car I have ever seen being driven on a public road - a 1902 Panhard-Levassor. Here's hoping my Porsche will make it that far...
