[808Mark]

I'm right at the finish line and about to get my car registered. Just for some history my car has been sitting in my garage in Hawaii for about four years. I was going through and double checking everything today getting ready for my safety check. When I initially started her up, she runs clean. Not much smoke. After about ten minutes when she's warm she starts blowing tons of smoke. When I hit the gas, I smoke out my neighbors house across the street. I was trying to discern a color of the exhaust, but I can't gather too much from it. It looks fairly normal, nothing extreme.

I did a block test and it came back negative so I don't think i'm burning coolant. I've had ethanol free gas in there for quite a while and it's probably stale. It's an off yellow color. I'm suspecting i'm burning oil, but could stale gas cause that? Could the warming up of the engine be simply blowing all the soot out of the engine?

What do you guys think is going on and what would your next steps be? I'm afraid I won't pass my safety when it runs like this.

 

[ralph66]

check the valve seals

 

[1964Fastback]

Also, pull the spark plugs and see how they look. Ones that are oil fouled will be wet and oily. Dry soot usually indicates too rich a mixture. Ones that are super squeaky clean can be from being steam cleaned by coolant.

What engine, by the way? And is the choke open after it warms up?

Pat

 

[m in sc]

id also think valve stem seals. only takes 1 or 2 to make it smoke. run it a bit, pull plugs, they will tell the tale as stated above. nice thing is they can easily be replaced in the car.

 

[808Mark]

Also, pull the spark plugs and see how they look. Ones that are oil fouled will be wet and oily. Dry soot usually indicates too rich a mixture. Ones that are super squeaky clean can be from being steam cleaned by coolant.

What engine, by the way? And is the choke open after it warms up?

Pat

I have a 390. And you know I didn't check to see if the choke was open after it was warm. Last time i checked my electric choke was working, but i'll need to double check on that when I run it today. I figured I'd do a compression test today while i'm checking the spark plugs. I appreciate the help!

 

[puttster]

When that happened to me, turned out to be transmission fluid leaking and blowing onto the hot pipes.

 

[1964Fastback]

That's a good point. Besides transmission fluid leaking onto the exhaust, it and brake fluid (if power brakes) can both be sucked into the intake manifold from their respective vacuum hoses and burned. You can temporarily remove or crimp the hoses while idling to see if that helps reduce the smoke.

Pat

 

[808Mark]

Thank you guys for the input. I was able to check the spark plugs on the passenger side and it's loaded with oil. I put in brand new plugs and they're already very obviously fouled. My compression test was surprisingly consistent. All four cylinders came in with +/- 3 psi of 150. Like you guys mentioned, i'm leaning towards valve stem seals being the problem.

Can this be done with the heads on? Anyone have recommendations for tools to assist with it?

 

[Kenny nunez]

Pull the vacuum hose off the transmission modulator. As previously mentioned the transmission fluid can be sucked into the manifold. The modulator is easy to change and not expensive.

 

[808Mark]

Pull the vacuum hose off the transmission modulator. As previously mentioned the transmission fluid can be sucked into the manifold. The modulator is easy to change and not expensive.

Yes good idea. Check the easy to fix stuff first! I'm going to do that now.

 

[808Mark]

Line on the transmission modulator was dry. I also check the vacuum line off of the brake booster and it was dry.

 

[extech]

pull the rocker cover and look at the guide seals. originals get crispy and break into little pieces. if you see lots of broken seals you need to also pull the pan to get them out. they can get into the oil pump and jam it causing the distributer drive to twist off

 

[Touring919]

It can easily be done with heads on. Use the tool you have for compression check to attach to an air compressor. Make sure the cylinder you are working on is at tdc compression stroke. Use a Spring compressor to compress springs and remove keepers/retainers. Once those are out the seals just slide off. Assuming you hve the old umbrella seals and not the new pressed on style. Reassemble in reverse.

But first make sure all simple solutions are checked as some above have already mentioned.

 

[1964Fastback]

Taking the valve covers off would be a good next step as suggested above. You didn't mention the history of the engine, so if it is an original survivor it could be filled with gunk under the valve covers. This is the case if it was run for years with non-detergent motor oil. That sludge, along with broken bits of the old valve stem seals, could be blocking the drainback holes in the head and causing oil to flood around the guides more.

Pat

 

[m in sc]

yup. when i did the ones in my old maverick:
tool for springs:

then, my compression tested had a fitting you could use to pressurize the cyl to keep the valve up, use that (take Schrader valve out), fill cyl with air and pull spring, keepers, etc off .

this stem seal on the motor was leaking . just hard as a rock but not terribly old:

after that, was right as rain.

 

[808Mark]

Taking the valve covers off would be a good next step as suggested above. You didn't mention the history of the engine, so if it is an original survivor it could be filled with gunk under the valve covers. This is the case if it was run for years with non-detergent motor oil. That sludge, along with broken bits of the old valve stem seals, could be blocking the drainback holes in the head and causing oil to flood around the guides more.

Pat

The car originally came from california and looked like it was babied. Low mileage with original engine, but I doubt it was rebuilt. I changed the valve covers when the car was downed and it looked pretty good inside. At the time, I didn't have the wherewithal to check the valve stem seals.

I double checked the transmission modulator today and it was still bone dry. I ran the car, and upon start up it would shoot out a healthy puff of smoke. After a few minutes it would smoke a lot. I repeated this a few times, so i'm feeling confident it's the valve stem seals. I'm going to prepare to change them. If anyone has recommendations on a store where they purchase engine parts like this, it would be appreciated. I'm looking for the viton type seals. My local napa can only bring in the neoprene type.

 

[808Mark]

Can anyone confirm if the 68 galaxie 390 valve stem seals are 3/8 x .562? I was able to find the valve stem diameter in the repair manual, but it didn't mention the valve stem guide diameter.

 

[m in sc]

3/8" X .625"-.660", Viton Valve Seals, Flex Body Type, FE Ford & Universal, VSS-407, set of sixteen

VSS-407, VSS407, Flex Body Seals, 3/8" X .625"-.660", FLEX BODY SEALS, 3/8" FLEX SEALS, 3/8 FLEX SEALS, 3/8 VALVE SEALS, VITON VALVE SEALS, FE Ford

www.alexsparts.com

 

[puttster]

If a valve stem seal is bad you may find chunks of it around the drain hole. Before you go blaming them for some massive oil leak though, run the engine with the valve covers off. If the oil just drips out of the rocker arm, the problem may be somewhere else.

 

[m in sc]

i didnt read about an external leak anywhere in the OPs description . .02