I have someone wanting to trade me a 97 1500 4x4 with a 5.2 for my Durango. It's pretty much an even up trade, both vehicles have issues. But I want a truck and he wants an SUV so...

Anyway, the truck starts up and has a little blue smoke that develops into ALOT of blue smoke and after a few minutes, clears to just a little smoke. My first thought was valve seals, nut thats usually right at start up. The heads have been redone in the past 6 mos and the truck has 130,000 miles.

Any common problems that come with these 5.2s that might cause such a problem? A little...then alot...then back to a little. Also sounds like maybe a slight miss at idle.

 

Aftermarket PCV valve....... they suck. Literally. Pull oil right out of the valve covers. Pull the hose off the valve, see if there is oil in there. A drop or two is ok.. if it dribbles out... .there is one problem.

Also could be a badly blown plenum. Look down the throttle body, see what you see. If you see oil.... yep, its bad.

 

HeyYou....yea You! Thank You. I"m probably going to go for it, just crossing my fingers at this point.

 

sounds like a plenum or PCV to me. The only other culprit is bad valve seals, but that would only be at startup and for maybe a mile or two.

If it is bad valve seals, yo will need new heads, or bring them to a machine shop to redo your current heads. However, I would advise against milling/rebuilding stock heads. THey crack easy enough without being touched.