engine smoke

[deamon3]

The engine itself smokes on my 94 ex. If the car is just idling or driving around slowly it's perfectly fine.

But if I take it up to 55 it'll run and drive fine but when I come to a stop and open the hood there just tons of smoke coming from the lower area of the engine.

I THINK , it's oil burning off the side/bottom of the engine because it's very wet underneath it. The car has oil in it , there's plenty of coolant and it's not overheating. There's no warning lights on the dash and the oil pressure is reading ok.

If I put my hand down there I can feel a small exhaust leak but nothing too bad.

I'm worried though that maybe the engine itself is burning something when I go to higher speeds. Because surely the engine temp wouldn't change and burn oil off the side of the engine when moving vs when sitting.

It starts runs and drives fine it just smokes after you try to drive fast , also the smoke is white not blue.

 

[vq5speed]

One of your valve cover could be leaking oil onto the exhaust manifold burning off.

 

[Sedition]

Yep, oil on the exhaust.
Wash the engine down first then start by sealing up your valve cover gaskets with grey Permatex.

 

[deamon3]

One thing I was worried about was the possibility the car is burning the oil inside the engine. Only because the car doesn't smoke at idle or when just sort of scooting around and i get the feeling the engine/exhaust is not any hotter at higher speeds. But rather the rpms.

is it possible i could have crank case pressure?

 

[2stroke]

You simply have more oil moving when you drive. Oil on the exhaust is the only way it could smoke. Valve covers are pretty much the only thing that they could be.

 

[natenkiki2004]

I beg to differ... When my oil pan gasket got really bad, it was running onto the exhaust. After driving, the smell was horrible when I parked. Though, there wasn't a ton of smoke.

Don't worry about crankcase pressure. The design of these engines sucks air in from the intake tube, right after the MAF, into the crankcase and through the PCV valve. If for some reason the PCV got stuck closed, there's still the vent tube on the intake tube. Your engine couldn't generate a lot of pressure, it would be more or less atmospheric pressure.

I would tend to agree with valve covers but there's not a TON of oil up there, there's just a bit splashing around. You'd almost have to have a gap or a hole in the valve cover to cause the kind of smoke you're talking about. You should see wet grime where the oil is coming out.

 

[acschilling]

I just did valve covers on my 92 and it cured a wicked 2 year cold knock issue. Was leaking oil but but definitely not smoking. I would agree that there would have to be a pretty big hole to cause smoke.

 

[5spdman]

Agree with everything already said...if it was burning off oil inside the engine, you'd only notice it coming out of the tail pipe. My 91 was doing the same thing you're talking about....leaks out from under the valve covers and onto the exhaust manifold. I replaced the valve cover gaskets and haven't had an issue since. Not all that hard to do (it is a little tight) and doesn't take real long...

 

[2stroke]

My valve cover had a small rust hole in it, and it smoked quite a bit. Everything around the cover was wet, but I never saw any drips.

 

[MythX]

If you determine that it is leaking from the valve covers (It doesn't appear we're certain of that yet), you might check for blowby. If your rings are worn (or you have a damaged piston) this could increase the crankcase pressure enough to force more oil out through the valve cover gaskets.

 

[deamon3]

it ended up just being oil burning off the side of the engine. however my oil pressure gauge is always on the "L" of NORMAL. is this ok?

 

[Wolfie_85]

The oil pressure gauge is a dummy. It just shows "on" which is somewhere in normal range. It only actually goes down if the oil pressure dips below a certain point (as in warning to shut down engine).

There is a mod to make it a "real" oil pressure gauge on here somewhere.

 

[Maniak]

Anything above 5psi will close the switch, so converting it to work like a real gauge is much better. 5psi of oil pressure at 4000 rpms would be bad, which can happen with the factory setup..

Here is the thread Wolfie_85 mentioned...

I found it by going to the useful thread sub forum and into the interior section (Since you are working on a change to a guage)..

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14894

In short, Change the sending unit with the larger style will help. To make the gauge really work like it should, you pull the cluster, put a wire over a resistor and viola, you have a real working oil pressure gauge that moves right along with the pressure.

~Mark