I had a wheel bearing squeak. Went to an empty carpark and and drove in a circle around the Mrs to see which wheel it was. Got loads of smoke out the back while cornering and lost sight of the Suzy. Back to the Future moment. No oil smoke when I am on the straight. Is this normal, do I need to add breather pipes anywhere? T1 1600, oil level half way up the dip now.
I the squeaking was the nearside rear brake, sorted that, but concerned about the oil smoke, thought I'd blown the engine, it was that much smoke.
You mentioned the rear brake squeak, but you said that's sorted now. Your question is about loads of smoke from the engine. Was the smoke from the exhaust or oil leaking onto hot engine. The oil level is down, was it up to the mark and now going down.
If the smoke came out the exhaust pipe, be worried. If it was just generally from under the back, I would guess rocker cover leaking oil and you noticed because you were driving slowly. Or if you had topped up the oil recently its just dripping off the tinware onto the exhaust. Pictures please, looking around rocker cover and heater boxes.
^^^^ This . Probably an oil leak getting onto the heat exchangers which shows itself worse when going around and throwing more oil into the rocker cover which is leaking ...
The offside heat exchanger has some burnt oil sludge on it, inner side is spotless. I'll have to have another go to tell where it's coming from, thought it was from the exhaust. Could it be oil slumping over to the back of the piston, getting smoked and then going back though the breather. Engine don't miss fire when going round though. I've a bit of an oil leak of the pump or case but it's not using much.
need pics of the engine bay, rocker covers and heat exchangers. After that I would clean leaked oil from the engine, top up the oil to maximum, then start the engine and see where that smoke is coming from, as so far you don't know exactly.
If it only smokes out of the exhaust when you drive around in circles my guess is some oil has gone up the pushrod tubes into the rocker cover and has been sucked into the engine down the valve guides. If it doesn’t smoke when driving normally, assuming you don’t normally go around in circles, just top up the oil.
Several circles later. White smoke comes out the exhaust when I do several heavy clockwise circles. None when I do ccw circles. Non when going straight. So sounds like @77 Westy valve guides. I built the engine 2 yrs ago, 3k. New heads and separate stainless valves. Don't think there are separate valve seals, my mk1 golf had separate rubber seals on the valve stems, will check, don't think I left anything off during the build, the brass valve guides shouldn't have gone already.
Even if valve stem seals were fitted, they would probably have dropped off and if they’re still there they won’t do any good. VW deleted them. Stop driving in circles and forget about it.
