tysen86

Alright guys, I need some suggestions. I have a 22re that is brand new. New pistons, rods, rings, cam, rockers. All of it is new. The problem is its smoking. If I drive the truck it clears up. If I let it sit and idle for a minute it starts to smoke again. Its blue smoke so obviously an oil issue. Assuming some blow by from the new rings not being seated yet, I placed a clear bottle in line with the PCV valve to see if any oil was getting through there...VERY little (I know, it should be none). Even if that was the culprit, with the bottle there the smoking should clear up due to the bottle catching whatever oil would be getting into the cylinders and it doesn't clear up. I pulled the plenum off to change a faulty (brand new) fuel injector and found oil in the intake ports. Not just damp with oil but a small, very small, puddle in each port. I've looked very closely at the valve seals and they all appear to be correct. I'd like to do all the troubleshooting I can before I pull this motor and take it back apart. If it comes to that, so be it. However, I would like for that to be a last resort.

At this point I have a couple of questions...

1) How do I test to see if the valve seals are leaking?

2) Where else could I be getting oil into the cylinders?

Any suggestions y'all might have would be great! I've beat my head on the wall trying to think of anything it could be...

Terrys87

iTrader: (1)

I would see what a compression test has to say. Other then rings , valve seals, and PCV valve not sure where it could come from.

millball

How many miles run??

How did you break it in?? Did you build it, or someone else?

It has been my experience that rings usually fail to seat when the honing is not aggressive enough and/or when hard acceleration-deceleration cycles have not been made immediately when the truck is first run.

Most ring seating happens in a hundred miles, or less. If improper things are done during this window, sometimes the rings will never seat.

If it is the valve seals, it would likely smoke worst on cold start-up after sitting overnight.

tysen86

Compression is:

Cylinder #1 = 175
2 = 172
3 = 170
4 = 170

The motor has about 500 miles on it. I agree, the rings should be seated. I built the motor and I followed LC Engineering's break in procedure. When it first cranked I let it idle at 1500 RPMs for 15 minutes and whatever else they recommend. Can't remember all of it....I've slept since then.

Turd Furgeson

If you have oil in the intake runners.... are you sure it's not the forward valve cover vent? On my turbo truck I had to make an oil catch can to keep from sucking oil into the intake. I'd maybe look into that,and or the pcv system.

tysen86

Yes, I've looked into both of those. I used a "catch can" on the PCV line. Maybe I'm just still getting blow by. Guess I'll pull it and re ring it.

Innocent Fool

When you built the motor did you also rebuild the head?

Had an issue with a Chrysler once that smoked allot. Turned out it was a vacuum line sucking in oil from a vent of some kind (been a while and can't remember) check to see if your Vac lines are routed properly

tysen86

No, I didn't build the head, I had a local shop do it. However, I'm a little concerned about their work. They've built heads for me before but this one just seemed different. Wasn't very clean when I got it back. I felt like they just painted it instead of cleaning it good.

With the EGR delete kit that's on it the only vacuum lines are to the fuel pressure regulator, the charcoal canister, brake booster, PCV and ventilation tube on the front of the valve cover. Everything else is capped off with good vacuum caps.

osv

blue smoke on acceleration is rings, blue smoke on deceleration is probably a valve seal/valve guide problem, so the first thing to do is to define where the problem is most evident.

i think that the pcv valve is designed to pull blowby gases out of the crankcase, at metered volumes determined by engine vacuum, so anything that interferes with the crankcase gas pressure could affect what you see in the "catch can"... so how does the seal at the top of the dipstick tube affect crankcase pressure, and did you replace the dipstick, or fix it's sealing area? people will usually re-use a sloppy dipstick.

does the receipt for the engine build list new valve seals? it's hard to imagine that they would be so incompetent as to not replace the seals.

tysen86

The dipstick tube is an issue. However, there's more blue smoke than I can see the PCV system causing. If I let the truck idle it gradually gets worse and when I bump the throttle I get a huge puff of smoke. If I drive the truck, it clears completely. I'm seriously thinking its valve seals.

osv

you could wrap some masking tape or something around the top of the dipstick, and try to get a temporary seal on it.

maybe put a cheap harbor freight vacuum gauge on the end of the dipstick tube, see if the crankcase is pulling some vacuum at idle.

maybe after the engine gets broken in a bit, i would have someone drive your truck while you ride in a vehicle behind it, and see if there is blue smoke at either acceleration or deceleration.

tysen86

I'm going to pull the header off tomorrow and look at the bottom of the valve seals. I really don't think that the PCV is the total culprit. There's to much smoke for it to be just that. I can see in the morrow when it smokes. Once I drive about a hundred yards it clears up completely. No smoke when I shift or anything.

Also, a new dip stick is ordered.

tysen86

Update! Pulled the head, had new Viton seals put in it, put it back together and BAM, no more smoke!!

osv

thx for the feedback, glad to hear that seals fixed it.