JohnnyCanuck

I don't get how rings can cause smoking on start up after sitting. Gravity pulls oil down, the only oil that can come down is from the heads. I've never seen rings do that after the miles he's listed on any engine I've rebuilt. I still say it's valve seals, as I've had to change garbage brand new seals for positive seals. MAYBE guides but my vote is seals. there should be a poll!

Bigblock

The engine wont wear much going down hill(engine braking), so essentially you have half as many miles as you show on the odo! Run it like you stole it,then after a 1000 miles let us know if it uses a significant amount of oil.

coloradotom

I hear you. That makes total sense to me too. If it was smoky exhaust when I was rolling down the road I would think rings, but my intuition says gravity is at work here...

But yeah, we'll see.

Here's what I'm thinking: if I finish breaking in this thing and it's still a problem, a lovely blue ribbon and certificate of accomplishment will be awarded to the yotatech poster who successfully fixes my truck! I will supply a COMPLETE 12 pack of beer!

904x4

do you know for sure that it only smokes at state up, has someone followed you to see....just askin'

snobdds

I wonder that same thing...

I would at least put a paper towel at the end of the exhaust to see if any is getting past the cat, if you have one. If you have an oily exhaust, then it is the rings. But, even if you don't see the oil, your cat may be burning it off. It will not be a problem for a while until the cat fails due to all the oil. Your 02 sensor will also fail if there is a lot of oil.

coloradotom

No cat. Got a new exhaust from manifold back and left the cat out of the equation.

Been a couple weeks since I posted an update. I've now got about 750 miles on the motor. Did about a 300 mile road trip on it, then dropped the break-in oil and put in my go-to Castrol 10w-30 with a zddp additive.

Still puffs on startup. I really don't think there's any oil in the exhaust when it's running after the initial startup. Haven't had anybody follow me, but I've looked back out the driver's window and it looks totally clear. Smells oil-free too.

Tomorrow I'll drop it off to get the valves adjusted and the head torqued. I'm going to have my guy watch what happens on startup. He's my mechanic and not the machinist who did the rebuild. He and I will be throwing some hard questions at the machinist. I think I'm going to at least want some of my money back from him.

Couple observations: the harder I ran it before shutting it down, the more smoke there seems to be when I eventually start it. And certainly the longer it has been sitting the more smoke. After 4-6 hours there will be a tiny puff. After 24 or more a nice little cloud.

I think it has to be gravity related. I'm not a mechanic, but it only makes sense. If more time == more smoke, how can it have anything to do with oil from the pan? Doesn't it have to be leaking into the cylinder(s) from the top end?

What about the valve stems? Could it be that when the head was going back together after guides and seals the machinist missed that the valve stems were scored or just worn down to a narrow diameter--or off round (flat side)? Could it be that he should have been replacing the valves?

This is so fuggin' frustrating. Love the truck and it is running GREAT, but if it's going to be an oil burner even after digging deep to get a new motor I am going to be pretty scorched. Seems like I need to deal with this if the work was jacked up ASAP. If all I get out of it is a couple hundred bucks back it still won't be at all satisfying. But if the machinist is willing to go back into it to back up his work, it would be good if we had a clue about what to send him in looking for. Given my knowledge is limited--but it seems like ruling out the short block would be rational. The head could be pulled and he could be looking for the problem there, and fuggin' fixing it.

j2the-e

If it was my customers truck, in the interest of getting it fixed in a timely matter, I would replace the valve seals with the head on. A little tricky on a 22r because the head bolts need to be removed. I'd pull the rockers, re-install the head bolts with spacers, then pull the cam and replace the seals. Deal with the machine shop later. And if that doesn't fix it, the head goes to the machine shop for guide inspection. It is your mechanics job to fix it. You shouldn't have to deal with the machine shop. That's his job

coloradotom

Thanks for the input.

An update: it actually seems to be getting better. Startup exhaust smoke not completely gone, but getting better. Not sure if it's the oil change, or whether break-in is still working itself out.

Initial oil was NAPA 10w-30, which I always heard was decent oil made by Valvoline. But since I was only going to run it for 500-750 miles it seemed to make sense to save a little money. Also added Lucas Engine Break-in Oil Additive, mainly for the zinc, to that break-in oil.

Replaced it with basic (dinosaur, not high-mileage) Castrol 10w-30 and ZDDP zinc additive. The Lucas additive is a whole pint. ZDDP is just an ounce or so.

Could it be that I just have better oil in it now, and so even though the problem is still there it's not coming through as bad?

Another question I have to throw out there: what about valve stems? This engine started out having been rebuilt by the jerk I bought it from after some level of timing chain failure. I don't know if it was a full-on failure where the valves crashed into the pistons or what.

Could the valve stems be worn narrow enough to make poor contact with seals? What about scoring? And a crazy thought: if one or more of them had actually been bent, could somebody have straightened them out enough that they would look visibly OK enough where it could be missed that they were flawed?

I am actually starting to be a little optimistic that this problem could gradually go away. You guys think I'm fooling myself?

coloradotom

Just a little update for anybody who cares.

Early summer I had a full rebuild of my '89 22RE.

I had that done after buying the truck in Spring from a kid who claimed to have rebuilt it. The motor with 500 miles was puffing smoke on startup and using like a quart per 800 miles.

So then I had a local machine shop tear it all the way down and rebuild the whole long block. Got it back and it was still puffing smoke at startup (pretty good cloud of smoke) but only when the truck had been sitting for like more than 6-8 hours. It used some oil from the first change. Put new oil (Castrol 10w-30 dinosaur) in after about 800 miles.

That oil now has about 2K miles on it. It still puffs smoke at startup. But it really doesn't use an appreciable amount now. Even if I flog the crap out of it. In the 2000 miles I have on this oil, it's only down about half a quart. And most of that seemed to go in the first 1000 miles.

I have found that if I get home from a drive of more than an hour or so then park it, when I start it the smoke will be pretty big. If I just run around town doing errands, like 15 minutes of the motor running, the smoke is noticeably less.

The thing runs awesome. Once it's warm, it starts immediately, barely need to turn it over. The cold starting takes a little longer, but pretty much normal for a 22RE (I've had two other ones, one of those in a truck I bought new off the lot in '93).

So I'm not really inclined to do anything. The smoke at cold start is annoying, but not enough to make me want to spend any money fixing it. It is barely using any oil (probably only whatever is going out the tailpipe when it starts cold). Gas mileage is right where it should be for a 4-cylinder 4x4 extra-cab. Getting 22-25 MPG depending on how I drive it.

Lots of the hoses and stuff seem to be pretty beat. Any chance that this cold start smoke could be the result of some vacuum hose or something that isn't sealed up properly? I just replaced the rubber between the air intake and intake manifold because it was cracked and electrician's taped...

When it all got put back together, the cruise control wasn't working any more. Any tips about what to look for to fix that? I do intend to go through and check the ground wire connections as identified in this yotatech thread, just in case one of them got missed.

Any ideas or feedback appreciated.

HighLux

Smokiing on startup is not rings. Jeez. Bad rings would smoke all the time.

He didnt check the valve guides. New seals yes....but the guides are worn.

When you start it after sitting....it burns of the oil that has leaked past the guides. When it warms up the valve expands getting a better fit. When it cools off the oil runs past...pooling on the piston. Start it up....and it burns it off.


Rings.....silly rabbits.

coloradotom

I think that you're absolutely right, given my limited knowledge. If the rings hadn't seated properly it would burn oil running down the road all the time (which was happening with the supposedly new engine when I bought it).

Gravity has to be driving this. Valves.

So here's a question: could it be that the valve stems were worn enough to create the gap that could cause this? I really think seals and guides where both replaced 3,000 miles ago. But what if he failed to check the diameter of the valve stems?

This is all just for discussion at this point. I'm not going to do anything about this in the foreseeable future. It's just not a big enough problem to spend any money on. But if I had any other reason for the head to be off it, I would want to have some ideas.

osv

that is a useless observation, because it doesn't address the color of the smoke... two pages of posts, no mention of that, perhaps i missed it.

probably irrelevant, since you aren't using a significant amount of oil, i'm just saying that someone should have clarified it from the start.

coloradotom

Good question.

It's gotta be oil smoke. Smell is un-mistakable motor oil. Blue-ish. Smells burnt, more so than the oil smoke smell that you get from vehicles that have smokey exhaust all the time. I've smelled anti-freeze exhaust smoke before.

osv

blue sounds like oil, i think you got it right.

black is fuel, anti-freeze/water tends to be white.

i'm wondering if they just never did the guides/seals, as people mentioned earlier.

the backyard mechanic way to check the guides is put a new valve in the guide, and measure the side-to-side play of the valve... you do not want excessive play there.

you could run compression/leak down tests, to be reasonably sure that it's not a ring issue.

coloradotom

So just a little update:

It still puffs on cold startup after it's been sitting. But the amount of smoke varies. Seems to have quite a bit to do with how long and hard it was running before I shut if off and park it. If it runs 15-30 minutes around town, it can sit for days and there can be pretty much no visible smoke at startup. If I come back from a highway trip and park it, there can be quite a bit of smoke at startup after it's sat for a couple days.

From what everybody here says, there has to be at least one valve guide that's dodgey. I'm still curious about whether the valve stem(s) could be worn enough to compromise the seal.

Thing runs fuggin' awesome. I've been doing quite a bit of light 4-wheeling during the Colorado elk season and it does great. Highway power is really surprising for a 22RE. Doesn't use enough oil to matter. But I don't like starting it in the garage because sometimes it fills the whole thing with blue smoke. So I push it out, so at least the a$$ end of it's hanging out into the driveway before I turn it over. Which is obviously annoying.

osv

the valve stem is typically harder material than the valve guide, so there should be more wear in the guide itself.

it would be nice if you could just change the valve stem seals, without unbolting the head stud nuts... I don't think that's possible tho.

coloradotom

It's kind of a long thread, but there was a post back in summer where I tell what-all was already done. I hired out a complete long block rebuild.

I bought it from a kid who claimed to have done a full rebuild with 500 miles on it, but it was doing this puffing on startup thing worse than it is now and was using a bunch of oil when driving (more than a quart/1000 miles).

I had gotten a decent price for it, so I berated the kid I bought it from (he was a dick about it) then worked with my mechanic and his favored machine shop.

Here's what was on my receipt:

"Complete engine rebuild (long block): Disassemble long block engine, hot tanking, gasket prep, glass beading, magnafluxing, valve job, surface head, replace valve guides, bore and hone block, r&r rods & pistons, recondition rods, rebush rods, r&r soft plugs, grind crankshaft and assemble long block engine"

So that's really where this thread is at. Engine is obviously LOTS better than it was before the rebuild. But it seems like whatever was allowing oil to migrate into the combustion chamber(s) when it sits for a while before the rebuild was (is) still happening after I got it back.

It got new guides and seals. Either BOTH the kid I bought if from and the machine shop jacked up something with the guides/seals. Or there's something else going on (which made me ask the question about valve stems).

As Rerunn said in this post, "they aren't rocket science to put on". The shop that did the work has a great reputation around here. I have a hard time believing that the rest of the rebuild seems to be really good (super strong 22RE now), but somehow the relatively simple job of installing new guides/seals got jacked up. Seems like it's pretty unanimous here though that it kind of has to be that the oil is getting past at least one of the guides.

Unless I want to dig into it again it's kind of a moot point. I have weighed the option to bitch about it to my mechanic or not. It's a small community here. Making a stink has its costs. If it was still using a ton of oil I'd take it on and start making that stink. But as it is I'll probably wait until I have some other excuse to tear into it before I try to do anything.

osv

I've had to pull the motor in my rig twice in three years, plus an attempted head replacement... i'm with ya on not wanting to get under the hood again.

maybe look at simple stuff... get a cheap vacuum gauge from harbor freight, it's great for checking for valve issues, and general engine health.

long shots might be... is the pcv sealing in the head well, does it work right, is the dipstick sealing tightly in it's bore, etc.

coloradotom

Holy crap, is that really a thing? Dipstick seal?

My dipstick rattles around and spins freely in the tube. The seal is worthless. When you pull the stick it doesn't even stick in there a little bit. I assume it's shrunk up since it's going on 25 years old in a motor that has 235K miles on it (rebuilt of course--but the dipstick I'm sure is original equipment). I even bent the upper part so that it could be tucked into a spot so that it won't spin!

Dang. I'm going to be getting me a new dipstick. Looks like brand new they are $20-30. If there's any chance it could solve this that would be kinda fuggin' cool!

EDIT: The PVC and grommet were replaced during the rebuild.

osv

you can put shrink wrap on the top rubber part of the dipstick, where it's worn out, should last for bit.

cheaper if you mail order the dipstick, but however you get it, compare the length, and the full/empty marks... sometimes the dipstick tube in the block is the wrong length for the stick.

I think that the theory is that the crankcase is under vacuum, so if the dipstick seal is leaking, it'll let air in there... I've seen threads where people would replace the dipstick, and the motor would suddenly start making a whistling sound, from air coming in somewhere else.

I just don't see all that addressing the root problem of blue smoke on startup :-( but it's something else to check... your original theory of the shop re-using valves with worn out stems could be the problem... or maybe they reassembled the head without lubing the stems/guides?