Blue Smoke

["Al Powell" <apowell@agcom.tamu.edu>]

I'm willing to give Graham a prize for the I-5 cylinder head lug....

About the blue smoke he mentions...and I really hate to bring this 
up, but it's the only thing which occurs to me....

It is possible for the oil ring (bottom ring on the piston) to 
stick, or to lose its tension (relaxing it so it does not scrape oil 
off on the downward stroke...).

Of those two possibilities, the first might be fixable without 
teardown.

WARNING:
The following commentary is offered in the full knowledge that it 
will be immediately and cheerfully be ripped asunder by other 
list-members...

If an oil ring is stuck, you MIGHT fix it by pulling the spark plugs, 
fill the cylinders with kerosene or other penetrating-type oil, let 
it sit for a few days...in the hopes of breaking the rings loose.  
Then spin the engine with the plugs out to remove the kerosene (Hint: 
don't lean over and peer into the plug hole while doing this - and be 
ready to wash off the engine afterwards...) then change the oil and 
filter, fire it up and see what happened.  (This is an old 
mechanic's trick..many light oils or solvents have been used for this 
trick.  Sometimes it works, sometimes not.)

If an oil ring is not working, it is sometimes the result of getting 
the engine REALLY hot.  That can take the temper out of rings without 
causing readily evident damage - but results in oil usage because 
the ring does not have sufficnent tension on the cylinder wall to do 
its job.  No way around that one but to re-ring.

There are certainly other causes which I have not thought 
of....others will certainly offer them....

If it's not using too much oil and it's a ring problem, you might 
just drive it and buy the oil.....

Or so it seems to me at the moment.


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Al Powell                        Voice:  409/845-2807
107 Reed McDonald Bldg.          Fax:    409/862-1202
College Station, TX 77843      
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