ok, mate of mine with a TT is noticing some blue smoke at startup, which clears up after a few minutes when the car warms up... His mechanic reckons its either turbo seals or valve stem seals..... which sounds fair enough to me... Anyway, this may be a stupid question on my behalf, but can valve stem seals be removed without taking the heads off? I'm not really sure where they sit... Cheers
you can Most mechanics will have a tool which looks like a spark plug only it has a air fitting attached. you basically pressurize the cylinder and then remove the valve retainer and spring with a special tool. the air pressure holds the valve in place. you then replace the seal and all good.
To replace the valve guides the heads have to come off, they need to be heated to remove them, the stem seals can be replaced the way Zmokin has described.
My understanding of a valve stem seal problem was ... that if you left the car at idle, the oil smoke would not clear up after a few minutes, but would get worse. Can someone comment on this?
That depends on how worn they are! Stem seals would usually leak oil down into the cylinder very slowly over night, resualt is blue smoke at start up next morning, which then burns off quite quickly. But yes the seals could cause smoking at idle if badly worn, and so could many other things.
while were on the subject twice now, my car has blown out a fair bit of smoke from the left exhaust (white) at idle about 5 minutes after startup (drove at 60 for 5 minutes, stoppped at lights) then when i drove off, it went away and didnt come back, next day it did the same thing, then next day it didnt do it its not steam as it hangs around for too long it hasnt done it since (did it a week ago) but i'm not convinced something is not wrong. new PCV valves by the way
what colour are the P/side exhausts? when its smoking dose it missfire or run a little rough? Coolant burns white.
Re: while were on the subject You should be able to check pretty easily if its coolant, by checking your radiator / over flow tank and compression numbers. Mine has done a similar thing, still not 100% sure what it is. Compression avg is 165, and radiator and overflow levels havent changed a drop.
Re: what colour are the P/side exhausts? nah, didnt even notice till i saw white smoke in the rear window i'm thinking it could be head gasket, i hope not ofcourse.. haha is there a better way to test?? i thought there was some sort of paper that you put in the radiator that changes colour if there were exhaust gasses in there water levels are a tad low, (100ml after 2000km.. not somehting id be concerned about
Rad place will do h/carbon test but you could also look at the plugs on the P/side bank they may look cleaner than the normal greyish brown colour, like there been washed sort off, bubbles in rad milky colour coolant, hope its not the gasket.:thumbsup:
Re: Rad place will do h/carbon test but plugs are new.. dont think theyll show anything yet rad place it is.. haha.. you hope its not the gasket!.. haha
