Need to get my beater car to stop smoking.

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Gas mileage tells you you are probably ok on compression but the cheapest look is to pull the plugs to look for oil soaked ones with bad compression or white ones that mean a cracked head with coolant leak. Do check the pcv and its hose qand grommet as you'll get more consumption if that system is bad and you tend to get more head carbon that leads to a lifted head gasket.

You can't run 30 delo in the winter period. I'd try the 10-40 HM like castrol and pennHM as they're close to 50 anyway and I wouldn't use a 20 weight in even a DC winter. I do think ARX will narrow down if its valve stem seals as it sounds as the ARX won't help that much but does cure alot of other abuse. If you have a head gasket cracked I'd be looking at used JDM motors as that motor is relatively cheap like the honda and tercel ones. You've already used too much solvent cleaners so I'd layoff those before you do effect the bearings.

I lost track of whether you smoke just on startup or off every traffic light?


Just at startup FYI. Thanks for the tips. So this ATX stuff won't help valve stem seals?
 
What about non-detergent oils? Could that help in this case?

I haven't heard anyone say anything about that. From what I see, they are super cheap at Walmart under the accel brand name.
 
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Why don't you buy a bisycle if maintaining your car is such a problem?




Let's see, I wouldn't consider this predicament a maintainence issue. The last owner may not have maintained it, hence the problem today. I would hardly all dropping another motor in maintainence. Secondly, this is a beater car, made to beat on. Maybe you would like to give me the money to maintain the car? I'll give you my bank's address if you want it. Please do not post things that deduct from the questions being asked in such a way that they establish negativity....and lastly....

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About emissions, FWIW I got my tercel to pass emissions with flying colors when it was doing this. I just made sure to give it a real good run to clear out all the puddled oil and a new set of sparkplugs. Passed no prob. In fact I've compared the sheet from my last e-test with the oil burner engine, and my recent one with a rebuilt engine installed, and I hardly see a difference in the numbers.
 
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What about non-detergent oils? Could that help in this case?

I haven't heard anyone say anything about that. From what I see, they are super cheap at Walmart under the accel brand name.




Odds are it'll make things worse, not better. If the valve stem seals are the problem, and you use non-detergent oils, the rings could get stuck in short order and make things much worse.

The AutoRX mentioned above is definitely worth a try.
 
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Try a dose of Auto-RX, follow instructions....




Could you please expand on this Auto RX stuff? Where can I get it? What color bottle? Is that supposed to stop valve stem seal smoking, or simply pinpoint that the problem is bad valve stem seals?




There's another fellow on here that's got a japanese engine like we do (a 4rth gen civic, like mine)-- believe his name is Larry. Anyway he's pushing 400,000 miles and he states AutoRX helped clean his valve train.
 
DX92beater,

You mentioned in your first post that you got 40+ miles per gallon with this old beater.

Then all you need to do is keep adding oil and you will be fine. When it finally blows up, you buy another beater.
 
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Try a dose of Auto-RX, follow instructions....




Could you please expand on this Auto RX stuff? Where can I get it? What color bottle? Is that supposed to stop valve stem seal smoking, or simply pinpoint that the problem is bad valve stem seals?




There's another fellow on here that's got a japanese engine like we do (a 4rth gen civic, like mine)-- believe his name is Larry. Anyway he's pushing 400,000 miles and he states AutoRX helped clean his valve train.




http://www.auto-rx.com/pages/pov43.html
 
Sorry dx92! I was under the impression that the engine was smoking all the time... not just at start up. If it's only at start up then, it's valve seals and changing them will stop the smoking or, as others have stated, give Auto RX a try.
 
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Why don't you buy a bisycle if maintaining your car is such a problem?




Let's see, I wouldn't consider this predicament a maintainence issue. The last owner may not have maintained it, hence the problem today.
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Nor would I call this a maintenance issue. I agree 100% with DX92. My car also had a bad childhood-- poorly maintained before i got it. It would not be cost efficient to fix my car's current problem. Yet my car absolutely does have a lot of life left in it. So I'll keep playing with bandaids until i get a new engine.
 
Thanks again all. I have tons of information here to try and weed through.

I might try the auto-rx stuff. Do I have to change the oil before I do it?

I also have a can of engine Restore in there. I have heard good stuff about it even though it is not helping the smoking issue at all.

I'd like to make sure I get good use out of it since I paid for it.

Anyone know what the minimum time I'd want to keep that stuff in the engine for before moving on?

Based on what I am reading, I might want to give Castrol HM 10w 30 a shot (since it seems that a thicker oil can smoke in the winter).

Mechanic here wants at least $900 to put valve stem seals in.

Things are expensive up here.

Thanks so far
 
You know something else....

I forgot this little detail as to when the car smokes. See when I went for emissions, this is what would happen. The car would smoke at startup, but then it would stop smoking. However, the smoking would start again after 20 minutes of being run on the emissions dyno. The emmissions guys would leave the car running to the point where it would start smoking again and fail it deliberately.

Now I haven't seen it act like that in a long time, but there again, I am not looking out the back window for smoke every second while I am driving either.

With that said, even if that part of the smoking stopped, it would have to be rings would it not?
 
My cousin works at a big used car dealer where beaters are their specialty. He says when they get one in that smokes oil, they change it with Mobil 1. It still burns oil but you see little if any smoke.
 
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Thanks again all. I have tons of information here to try and weed through.

I might try the auto-rx stuff. Do I have to change the oil before I do it?

I also have a can of engine Restore in there. I have heard good stuff about it even though it is not helping the smoking issue at all.

I'd like to make sure I get good use out of it since I paid for it.

Anyone know what the minimum time I'd want to keep that stuff in the engine for before moving on?

Based on what I am reading, I might want to give Castrol HM 10w 30 a shot (since it seems that a thicker oil can smoke in the winter).

Mechanic here wants at least $900 to put valve stem seals in.

Things are expensive up here.

Thanks so far




DX, you in No. Va.? Or somewhere south?
 
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