And not in a good way! :cry:

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed a burning oil smell from my 88' 4runner with the 3.0. I havn't driven it in a couple of weeks.
When I started it up tonight, I noticed the smell again, I looked under the hood. There is a white or light grey smoke coming from the back of the passenger side of the engine. It is mainly coming from inder the thin metal shield that is right over the exhaust manifold. Where it is coming from is pointed out in the picture included.
I am hoping it is not the head gasket!
If anyone has some ideas, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks
Kent

 

Cracked manifold maybe? could be headgasket check for water in the oil! I had a head bolt broke once and it leaked water on to the manifold and evaporated took several months of hard driving to figure out where the water was going look for traces of oil or antifreeze on the manifold!

 

Could be just gasket under the valve cover. I had the same problem. Cheap and easy to solve. Good luck.

 

Mine leaks around there too. All over the place. On the starter, manifold, frame rail, and front differential. Smells good too coming in the cab since I have a big gaping hole from the torn shifter boot!


I'm thinking (hoping) its just a leaking valve cover gasket. Pita to replace though since you have to remove so much crap from the motor to get it out.

 

It seems like it would be too low for the valve cover. I was tinking of torquing down those bolts and see what happens.
anyone ever fix a problem like this?

 

Have people that have had the head gasket problem have this smoking problem too?

 

Mine was smoking just becouse of the valve cover gasket. I looked low too.