smoke from rear left wheel arch at lights
 

something or joint is leaking drips of oil onto something hot like an exhaust. nearly bailed the kids out at the lights the other day on the way to hockey. freak out! any ideas chaps? she is an early '94 993 C2. low mileage, sat for 15 years but always kept up, now driven high speeds on autobahns and some mountain passes. porsche checked it last year and found nothing to do. thinking must be a worn joint seal or gasket or washer or something typical. is it dangerous? could it pop into flames one sunday afternoon? should I get a fire extinguisher anyway? Help!!

My guess would be simply a leaky valve cover gasket. I would wipe everything down and see where its coming from. Also, not sure of the total miles but could also be a blown motor mount. Those will leak right onto the cats and smell terrible. Not an expensive fix either way. My money is on just the valve cover gaskets.

thanks mate. will have a look at those two things.

It's oil dripping onto the heat exchanger from a leaky valve cover gasket, most likely. Not a big problem or expensive fix, but the smoke can be alarming and smells bad.

Now you owe us a photo of your low-mile C2 :cheers:

it doenst do it all the time so ill wait till the next oil service to have them tightened up.

Generally speaking, it's not a matter of tightening up the lower valve cover fasteners but rather replacing the gaskets...
With heat cycles and time, the gaskets lose their resiliency and grow hard, thus losing their ability to seal properly.

Kids playing hockey is certainly dangerous.

Smoking oil from lower valve cover drips is rather common and not dangerous, though people tend to make funny faces and attempt to run away. Combined with the little hockey goons in the car... a tough combo.

As many said above, definitely lower valve cover gaskets. Could also be warped covers, but that's much less likely. What is likely is that the car would leak from other gaskets too, so do one job at a time and keep checking. Might also want to swap spark plugs while doing lower valve gaskets. Oh, BTW, the next step in the saga, if you don't replace the valve cover gaskets, will be oil small seeping through the air vents after the car seats for a while. That is much more fun than external smoking. Ask me how I know and why I;m glad to own a convertible.

Valve cover as discussed above....or leaking oil return pipe. Ask me how i know!

Went for a big very fast drive on the swooping alpine autobahn. no smoking when arrived. same on the way home a few hours later. (its a great drive!). my guess i overfilled it and it finds its way out when sitting all week long. sure its not suspension or engine mounts as car hasnt been used enough, but will have it checked with next oil service. thanks alot for the update suggestions. i dont have any DIY ability here where we live. very urban setup. also car is 100% stock factory example and i love the way it drives and the original feel.

this forum is great and enjoying the family feel. if anyone here wants to drop by and enjoy some original alpine home land of our cars just pm me. Sun is shining endlessly and im finding work related reasons not to go for a burn up now!

they demanded to sit in the back on the way home. that lasted about five minutes. one of the them kneeing my back. stopped and made the biggest get in the front and the other one sit behind him. they where pretty stunned by my old fashioned approach. brats!

corner balancing not a necessity for a street only car and only possible if switching to coilovers anyway.

If it was from overfilling, wouldn't it likely smoke from the right side?

Unlikely just an overfill. Most common mechanism is the oil seeping through the lower valve cover gaskets and pooling on top of the heat exchangers. Where it starts smoking eventually, which in turn, mostly smelled and seen at low speed in-town driving. Any resemblance of an Italian tune-up will burn the oil off and you wouldn't smell or see it until the next time the car sits for a few days to a week, depending on severity of the leak.

I probably doesn't have anywhere near the original feel as the OEM Monroe shocks are known to blow at 30-40K miles or less. I'd wait a bit and see, but if ii understand correctly where you are (norther Germany or southerns Switzerland? Perhaps Austria?( you'll thoroughly enjoy redone suspension and better tires than what you surely currently have on 16" wheels (as almost no good tires seem to be available in 16" any longer). But I'd wait with that stuff until you get a much better feel for the car's shortcoming and pros for your specific usage.