hi guys
i am the proud owner of a 1998 accent 1.5 GLSi :) and it seems to give some smoke when starting in the morning (bloody cold here in the uk) i have only had the car a week, i have noticed that the exhaust manifold is cracked but my question is are piston rings going a common thing??
it has 120,000 miles on it.
any more info i can give to help you guys answer my question please just ask..
thanks in advance

Dear jamjar,

Two most probable cause of blue gray smoke on first cold start in the morning:

Worn piston rings
Worn valve guides

To properly diagnose this, you need to have a cylinder compression test done on your engines. If a cylinder measures low compression, you normally squirt 10 cc of motor oil in the cylinder and re-test. If the compression goes up, your rings are bad. If the compression stays the same after the motor oil squirt, you have bad valve guides.

Your valve guides tend to fail and start passing oil first, before your piston rings wear out.

Piston rings worn out at 100,000 miles is not common, but by 120,000 miles it is possible. The 1.5 liter revs 20% higher at 100 kph than V-6 engines, so the 4 cylinder engines will wear out faster.

Byron

This post has been edited by byronguidry3732: Jan 18 2008, 07:21 PM

Mmm sounds bloody expensive and i cant afford to get that fixed....pity because it a really nice drive.
are there any simple patch it up things i could do to stop the smoke for a while?

Dear jamjar,

A cylinder compression test is pretty easy. You will need a compression guage with a screw-in coupling like this:

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/disp...temnumber=94190

I would hope even in UK you could get this for under L 30. There is a cheaper type of compression tester with a rubber conical fitting, but this is far less accurate. You want the one that screws in the spark plug hole.

Start with a cold engine. unscrew and test one cylinder at a time. You will want to number label first then remove all 4 ignition cables and lay to the side. remove the fuse for the fuel pump. remove #1 spark plug, insert the screw in coupling, have your helper cranks 3-4 times. Write down the guage reading. Reinsert the spark plug and tighten.

Test #2, #3, and #4 in same fashion. Check your readings. Are any below 100 psi? For any cylinders below 100 psi, go back to that cylinder, remove spark plug, suirt 10 cc motor oil (any weight you have handy), test again. did the reading go up? Then the rings are bad as I stated before.

There are several Oil Stop Leak products in the US. You should be able to get a good Valvoline or Castrol oil stop leak. I think you also have STP products in the UK. All of these stop leak products are good to reduce oil consumption. do remember that you are just buying time for this engine.
http://www.valvoline.com/pages/products/pr....asp?product=33


The compression test you did above may confirm that your valve guides are bad, and this requires a relatively cheaper upper engine rebuild. You can get the valve guides machine knurled in an automotive machine shop to restore the tight fit of the valve. An upper engine rebuild will also replace the valve stem seals. Between the knurling and the seals, you can eliminate oil leaking down the valve stems and burning. And this is relatively cheap to do on a 4 cylinder engine head, just time consuming to remove and replace the head.

Byron

This post has been edited by byronguidry3732: Jan 18 2008, 07:41 PM

i changed my oil i put castrol 5w30 in and now the smoke has stopped,
could the wrong oil have caused the smoking?

Dear jamjar,

Yes, fresh motor oil could solve the problem. During my research, I found several 'high mileage' motor oils that are formulated with some stop leak in them. I almost recommended the Quaker State high mileage oil, but this is not as robust as a true stop leak product.

Even fresh regular motor oil will hold its viscosity better than worn oil.

Byron

beware of one thing jamjar, when is your mot test due? any excesive smoking will fail the emission test and from what you have told us about your engine that will mean 'bye-bye' car because of the expense of putting it right

Dear jamjar,

Per my private message, the new oil stopped your leaking and this likely means that your valve guide seals are bad.

Since the mot is a tough test, there is one more repair that can buy you time for cheap. You can change out the valve seals only! It is tricky to do as you need pressurized air to hold the intake and exhaust valves for each cylinder in the up closed position, do NOT remove the engine head, but remove the valve keeper, valve spring, old valve seal, replace with new valve seal, replace spring, replace the valve keeper. Most mechanical shops know this technique.

A Brit actually showed me this old farmer method to hold the valves up! With the engine rotation set 10 degrees before Top Dead Center, you feed 3/8 inch diameter window cord (used in casement windows for the weight and pulley) through the spark plug hole attempting to wind the cord in a circle on the piston crown until no more cord can be pushed into the cylinder. slowely crank the engine in proper rotation by HAND to seat the cord hard against the valve heads. Now, you do the same remove keepers, springs, old seal, install new seal, springs, and keeper. After the keeper is installed back, you have to gently by HAND back the engine in its rotation just a little to release the tension then pull out the cord. New valve seals will substantially reduce your oil leakage from the top, and for cheap.

Unfortunately, no cheap fix for worn piston rings. Oil Stop Leak can buy you time, as can moving up to 40 weight oil to pass the MOT.

Byron

mot is on wednesday i have put in a pot of stop smoke just hope that will do.
thanks guys

montego could you recomend a 40 weight oil that could help?
im a bit worried that it will fail the mot.

Greetings
I seem to have a similar problem but it occurs under different conditions. I also have the blue gray smoke problem but it only occurs when the engine is warm and has been idling for at least 1 minute. There is absolutely no smoke during the idle period but as soon as one steps on the gas a plume of smoke exits the exhaust. I normally don't have a problem with this issue since I don't regularly sit idling for long periods of time but it does happen. I just changed the oil to with no change even though there seems to be a undetermined variance in the severity of the problem. With the grace of god I just passed emissions testing since the ECU apparently does not see any persistent problems with the engine. The odometer reads 165k so anything is possible but if a simple valve/upper engine job can buy me a couple more years I'd be inclined to do that.
Thanks for any advice :liebe011:

Mine does the same!

I only knew because of the mechanic telling me after the cam belt change that it smokes after booting it from a long idle.... ive never idled for long and then booted it before, and often if that was the case the spoke would be long gone behind me!

some comes up from the engine bay, could be a downpipe crack.

I dont remember it before i changed the oil to synthetic, maybe the oils too thin or im at the upper level of full, so its passing the pistons?

Again, never hear the engine on tickover, its so smooth.... by the time its MOT comes around my oil will be thicker anyway