I recently purchased an 87 toyota with the factory turbo. the guy i had bought it from mentioned it might need new rings soon due to blowing smoke. once i started playing around with the truck i realized that it will smoke like a freight train for a few seconds, then clear up and not smoke at all. i was thinking that the turbo seals may be bad due to having 180k on it but just wondering if anyone else had any input.

 

Probably either compressor or valve seals, could be PCV valve. I would say to pull the duct from the turbo to the intake and look for oil, but the way the PCV is set up you'd likely have oil in there anyways.
A compression check would rule out the rings.

 

ok thanks ill try and get it checked out.

 

You are right, same thing happened to my truck at 175K. it was the turbo.

 

did the seals caus alot of power loss?

 

A leaking compressor oil seal can cause a loss of power: oil getting into the intake/cylinders will lower the effective octane rating of the fuel causing detonation which the knock sensor will detect causing the ECU to retard the timing. Also, running the engine this way for an extended length of time can foul the O2 sensor as well as foul and plug the catalytic converter either of which could cause a loss of power.

 

ok thanks alot i found a turbo for it and ill check on the other things. thanks alot for all of your help.

 

if you can figure out a way to bypass the intake duct to/from the turbo- run some sort of duct from the throttle to the air filter, you can start the engine and check for oil being sprayed out the compressor. just have something in front of it to catch the spray.