smoking

[gad@advanced-robotics-research-centre.salford.ac.uk (Graham Dalton)]

I recently posted some mail about the excessive oil consumption on my 1986 Audi 90 2ltr 5cyl (non-turbo). Those of you who read the thread may remember me whinging about the cost of using synthetic oil in this engine since it was using 1litre per 1000 miles.

The problem is getting worse..  there is now a visible 'puff' of smoke when I pull away from the lights. When I put my foot down, expecting it to smoke even more, there is nothing in the way of smoke. It also seems that the longer I sit at the lights at idle, the more smoke comes out.

I looked at the breather pipe from the crankcase to the rocker cover .. it was completely blocked with a solid gunge. I was pretty amazed since this pipe is 1/2inch in diameter. I cleaned this pipe out and the problem seems to have died down a little .. it wasn't smoking at all this morning. Whilst cleaning out the breather pipes I found there was a small bore pipe leading from a 4-way branch on top of the rocker cover which seems to go into the cylinder head (directly between the centre two injectors) .. this is blocked with brown fluid which I couldn't clear .. does anyone know what this pipe is for.

My mechanic reckons that if the rocker cover gasket has blown (which it has) this could cause these symptoms.. can anyone offer any explanations as to what fault  I'm experiencing here?

Yours hopefully

Graham Dalton