C531XHO

Hi guys,
So got the car out for a sunny evening drive, started fine as usual having sat for a month. Slight smell of oil on start up but no smoke. Drove ~2 miles before large blue smoke cloud emanating from the exhaust. Oil pressure fine, temp fine ran ok at first then a bit rough. Stuck it back in the garage and haven't had time to check anything other than Clarkes garage and Renlist threads. Where do I start?

82 944 NA, 80k miles, running VR1 oil

V2Rocket

I'd have just kept driving and see if it persisted.
Sitting car may well just have oil leaking from the valve guides that needed to be burned off...

C531XHO

Hi Spencer

No I think it's way heavier than that, the car is laying a smokescreen

Schmooey

Just a possibility here, because this is a common issue with 944s... but if you have a leaky cam tower gasket, like I had, it takes a while for the oil to start leaking out, but when it does and hits the exhaust manifold, you get lots of blue smoke. Just a possibility.

C531XHO

Hi Schmooey

Had a look but it doesn't seem to be that. All the oil smoke comes from the exhaust. I am thinking compression/leak down test as a first step

Regards

D

C531XHO

UPDATE...

So had a look this morning. Dipstick shows water in the oil so suspect head gasket failure. Funny that it only seemed to be oil in the exhaust, not steam. Wondering how to differentiate between head gasket failure and oil cooler - typically my compression tester is 300 miles away while we are away over the summer...

David

Jfrahm

Easy enough to check the plugs, if one has been steam cleaned and maybe is wet with coolant that indicates a head gasket leak.

odurandina

spark plug test?
loss of power?
missing coolant?
running hot?
when does the rubber meet the road?

C531XHO

I am a dope..

Plugs oily not steam cleaned....but only checked these after I removed the head. Sure the HG is in a poor state (probably original 1982 vintage) but the flame rings have not been breached. Finger of suspicion points now at the oil cooler/seals. Gasket has been replaced with the more recent green/combined type at some point but haven't managed to get the cooler out yet to fully examine/measure etc. Thinking I will get it pressure tested. What an PITA removing it is.. Still nowhere near as bad as removing the sump on a 928 though...