Blue smoke...

minimustangs · #1 10-28-2009, 12:31 AM

I can't say that it's happening every time, since I don't drive it all that much any more, but it seems that our 2000 Lariat 5.4L will puff smoke when you first start it up. My wife said that it usually stops once it's warmed up. I'm thinking that sounds like rings... not being a mechanic that's my educated guess. Which really sucks since we had done a full...and I mean full... rebuild done not even 4 years ago - for other issues. Even been running Synthetic since then. In between then and now we had 2 COPS fail ( after the motor job ) and apparently one of them went undetected for a time. Don't ask me how...

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glc · #2 10-28-2009, 02:47 AM

That's more symptomatic of valve guide seals than rings. How many miles does it take to burn a quart?

bobkyle2 · #3 10-28-2009, 05:16 AM

my old 4.6 done this from the day i owned it bought it used with 126k miles...sold it with 302k...im pretty sure its still running..did it worse in the winter im pretty sure if you just look past the smoke it will last for ever

minimustangs · #4 10-28-2009, 09:32 AM

Ahhh the answer is blownin' in he wind.

I can go a full oil change interval and it's not down a quart. I'm going to have to top it up and watch it a bit more closely now. I wonder if the oil used on the last change had anything to do with it. We usually use "Synthetic Brand 1", but my wife took it somewhere else for the last change, and used "Synthetic Brand 2".

If it is valve seals, not sure if that better or worse than being rings. a couple years after the rebuild 2 of the COPs failed, apparently one went, then another later. According to the mechanic, and the condition of the spark plug, on of them was down for quite some time. Funny that a check engine light can come on for the stupidest reasons, yet something where I should really get the engine checked, goes by un-noticed by the same system.

I know that some vehicles can run for years puffing here and there, my wife said it was really spewing last night though, but settled down as she got up to operating temps. I fired it up the morning and didn't notice anything unusual. It was quite humid yesterday and fog was setting in, I wonder whether that was part of what she noticed...the extra humidity and a fog/blue cloud type situation.

F150man21 · #5 10-28-2009, 11:32 AM

yea to honest it sounds ok to me. its not burning oil so i dont think theres anything to be worried about