What do you guys think is the main reason for all this buildup on the exhaust valves?

 

What was the engines oil consumption rate??

What brand of oil do you use?

If its not ash from combusted lube oil, its gotta be ash from burned fuel.

I assume that your air cleaner is sound and efficient.

 

the past two months I've had white smoke build up when I idle. I have been using chevron 10w-30. Yes and no. my intake was compromised for a little bit but I fixed the issue.

 

its hard to say my consumption rate because my valve cover and oil pan gasket were leaking

 

Might well be dirt that got into the engine when you had intake issues.

An engine that burns oil will always show some ash buildup, but modern oils leave less ash than oils ever did before.

I think your oil consumption would have had to be substantial to account for your heavy accumulation.

It does look as if that cylinder has more buildup than the others do.

Maybe a bad intake valve seal on that cyl, or washed out rings.

Did you do a compression test before you tore it down?

 

Looks normal to me. (I assume the beading is just water or coolant; it might be easier to tell if you'd dry it before taking the picture.)

But what do I know?

 

looks like you blew the head gasket. the middle 2 cylinders have coolant ash on them..... but it also has some slight coolant ash on the outter 2, but that could be the egr pumping it in, or throttle body if ef.

 

Looking at your third picture and third cylinder from the right, I would say you had a head gakset leak and it literally steam cleaned the piston when it burnt off the coolant.

Overall the head does not look bad to me and wonder if it is just ash build up on the valve that I see. Looking at two of the water ports in the head, Number 1 and 3 cylinders, I do see what looks to be the ports have corroded out just a bit. A common problem I have run into. Probably not enough to worry about but a machine shop can weld the ports back up and then work the port to the correct size.

If it was my head and no worse then it is, I would not have that work done to ports, I have seen much worse. It is just caused by acidic water and two different metals cause electrolis or something like that. Basically they just start fighting each other.

My local machine shop charges $35 just to see if the head has any other damages and if it is worth repairing. Have the head checked out. A new head can be had for about $250-$300 so balance that with repair over replacement.

 

here's the other worrisome part is that my lobes have flatted on my exhuast side plus the ridges on the rocker itself. if I put this back together with new gaskets.....will it make it through the winter? (10k miles)

 

if that's all it has to make it, and the cam still has decent lift, i'd hit it with a medium, then fine flap disc, like over 180 finish, and it should hold up, but you need to mic the cam lobes/lift to tell.

 

white in the exhaust means moisture, so like terry says, it'll probably be a blown head gasket... the moisture will clean out carbon in the combustion chamber, your pics are so bad that i couldn't tell if that was the case.

 

no photos of the flat lobes, but i wouldn't do it... you'd be better off with a junkyard camshaft and it's matching rocker setup.

all of that missing metal had to go somewhere, was there residue pooled up in the pockets of the head?