To Fix The Famous Blue Smoke Issue

[philipwk]

Doing a valve job, timing belt water pump, the works, to To fix the famous blue smoke issue. [1995 ES300]

For a year now I have been keeping the oil toped off, checking it every other day, then every day, lately the enging started missing on number 2 cylinder.

The cylinder has a burnt valve, I decided to do the valve job and all the rest, only because the wife loves this car!

So far $390.00 for the valve job, resurfacing both heads and 4 new valves. They used the new valve seals from my $266.00 (upper) gasket kit.

$75.00 for the water pump $145.00 for the timing belt kit.

I am doing the valve adjustment myself or that would have cost an additional $300.00 When doing the valve job.

The tensioner seams to be ok.

If I knew how to put photos on this post I would.

pk

[spalkin]

Awesome job Phil! Doing these jobs sure beats a car payment and there's really no better car to care for. Get on those pix.

[BROWAR]

so what is exactly 'famous blue smoke" issue about? I have this problem sometimes in the morning, first few seconds got thick blueish smoke then its clearing out. I was blaming it on Florida's moisture in the air...

[spalkin]

Yea, that's it.

[gabep]

Usually valve stem seals.

[blk_on_blk]

Yep, usually seepage of oil down past worn valve stem seals/guides that pools at the base of the valve causes the puff of blue smoke upon start up. Once that pooled oil is burnt off, the car runs normally. We had this happen on our '95 ES300, but then I made the foolish mistake of running Seafoam through the thing and I think it loosened up the crud that kept the engine sealed together, for it smoked constantly after that. We had the valve stem seals replaced, and during the process the mechanic didn't seat the new valve stem retainers well and they popped off during start up, dropping three valves into the cylinders.... they gave us a nice replacement engine after that and the car has been running beautifully ever since.

[Wudaye]

Thanks a lot for your posting. My car has the same problem. I took it to a car shop and they change the valve cover gasket. Nothing improved. It is getting worse, I would say. What more do you think they should have done?

Thanks,

Doing a valve job, timing belt water pump, the works, to To fix the famous blue smoke issue. [1995 ES300]

For a year now I have been keeping the oil toped off, checking it every other day, then every day, lately the enging started missing on number 2 cylinder.

The cylinder has a burnt valve, I decided to do the valve job and all the rest, only because the wife loves this car!

So far $390.00 for the valve job, resurfacing both heads and 4 new valves. They used the new valve seals from my $266.00 (upper) gasket kit.

$75.00 for the water pump $145.00 for the timing belt kit.

I am doing the valve adjustment myself or that would have cost an additional $300.00 When doing the valve job.

The tensioner seams to be ok.

If I knew how to put photos on this post I would.

pk

[Blayd]

My car did it.(not an es but smoke is smoke I guess) It was the P/S pump leaking.

[George_Jetson]

Doing a valve job, timing belt water pump, the works, to To fix the famous blue smoke issue. [1995 ES300]

For a year now I have been keeping the oil toped off, checking it every other day, then every day, lately the enging started missing on number 2 cylinder.

The cylinder has a burnt valve, I decided to do the valve job and all the rest, only because the wife loves this car!

So far $390.00 for the valve job, resurfacing both heads and 4 new valves. They used the new valve seals from my $266.00 (upper) gasket kit.

$75.00 for the water pump $145.00 for the timing belt kit.

I am doing the valve adjustment myself or that would have cost an additional $300.00 When doing the valve job.

The tensioner seams to be ok.

If I knew how to put photos on this post I would.

pk

[/quote

Sounds like you doing the job properly, but I would suggest reconsidering replacing the tensioner. I realize this large of a job is expensive, but the extra piece of mind you would get by replacing the tensioner I think is money well spent. Good luck, hope everything goes well.

[Wudaye]

a stupid question. What is tensioner? timing belt tensioner? it works for the Blue Smoke issue?

Doing a valve job, timing belt water pump, the works, to To fix the famous blue smoke issue. [1995 ES300]

For a year now I have been keeping the oil toped off, checking it every other day, then every day, lately the enging started missing on number 2 cylinder.

The cylinder has a burnt valve, I decided to do the valve job and all the rest, only because the wife loves this car!

So far $390.00 for the valve job, resurfacing both heads and 4 new valves. They used the new valve seals from my $266.00 (upper) gasket kit.

$75.00 for the water pump $145.00 for the timing belt kit.

I am doing the valve adjustment myself or that would have cost an additional $300.00 When doing the valve job.

The tensioner seams to be ok.

If I knew how to put photos on this post I would.

pk

[/quote

Sounds like you doing the job properly, but I would suggest reconsidering replacing the tensioner. I realize this large of a job is expensive, but the extra piece of mind you would get by replacing the tensioner I think is money well spent. Good luck, hope everything goes well.

[philipwk]

Valve job complete BAD NEWS engine STILL smokes, after all that work, the engine still smokes and looses engine oil, about 1/4 qt every 100 miles.

I have already eliminated the power steering fluid issue (unhooked the lines going to the valve and capped the niples)

I am waiting for a few miles for the engine to settle down and then do a compression check. (again, did one before all this, it was good).

How frustrating the engine only has 109,000 miles on it, how can it be rings?

pk

[blk_on_blk]

We went through this with our ES300. It ran well when I bought it, and then I foolishly ran some Seafoam through the intake and it blew blue smoke after that (apparently you're not supposed to run Seafoam through an engine with miles higher than 100K)... I guess I loosened up the crud that was sealing the engine. When trying to figure out what to do, I narrowed the problem down to either the intake valve seals or the oil rings on the piston, for I had good compression, too.

If you had a full valve/head job done with new seals and such, and your compression is good, then you probably have a sticky oil ring.... a hard thing to get unstuck. With our ES300, we went after the valve seals, but then after the valve job our shop apparently had a hard time with the keepers on the valve stem, and when they went to start the engine, the keepers popped out on two valves and they dropped into the cylinder chamber... and the engine was toast after that. Our shop is great to deal with and they sourced a good used engine for us, swapped out our old one, and we were back on the road running better than ever!! The used engine they sourced was about $600, and it came with a guarantee to work properly. I'm not sure what our shop's labor was, but it wasn't that much to do the swap. They just charged us for the price of the valve job, but it seems the valve job might has been about the same price as a replacement engine.

Often times a shop can't truly find the cause of blue smoke until they dig into the engine (meaning actually pulling it apart and finding a stuck piston ring or two and being able to point at it and say, "This was the cause"). So, if you are looking for alternatives, just doing a straight engine swap might be the most economical. If you have a good shop, they can probably source the used engine for cheaper than you could find it. We're in Portland, OR, and our shop had at least three replacement engines to choose from 'locally', so with being in Sammamish, you should have good availablity, too.

Good luck in what ever you decide to do.

PS, throwing in some Bardahl's No-Smoke in your crankcase will significantly cut down on your smoke issue for a while. It's a Band-Aid for the engine, but a good one for the mean time until you decide what you want to do.