Smoking
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Joined: Oct 2006
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Smoking
Okay, I got my truck not to long ago, its a 94 5.2L dodge ram 1500 with aftermarket dual exhaust with a X pipe than flowmasters, I realized today that my truck smokes, but only from the drivers side pipe and not ALL the time, sometimes it smokes a little bit, if atall sometimes it looks like im doing a burnout with all that smoke, please please help me out so I dont have to take my entire engine to find out the problem, I was thinking it could be a bad head gasket, bad head, or a bad valve, please help
Thanks
Phil
Thanks
Phil
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Joined: Jul 2006
Posts: 12,204
Likes: 10
From: Gainesville, Ga.
RE: Smoking
smoke is usually from rings or valve seals. rings are a big deal to fix, pretty much requiring a motor rebuild. usually by the time the rings are shot, the mileage is very high, and most everything else in the motor is equally shot, so its not a spot repair. valve seals and guides are in the head. everyone will have a different opinion, but mine is that if the mileage is not overly high (say 200k) and there is nothing else wrong, it might, might, be worth a head rebuild for less money than a full engine, but its still a lot of work and $ and risk. There is nothing worse than wasting $1000 on rebuilding the heads of a worn out motor...
worn out rings usually smoke a lot when cold, and then ease up when hot. valve seals tend to smoke all the time, less at highway speeds and then heavy at idle and accleration.
oil is cheap. and it keeps the mosquitoes away....
For valve seals, I think this is a better option - several years ago a friend of mine replaced the valve seals on a dodge caravan v6 for me without pulling the heads. he pulled the valve covers and plugs, and then one cylinder at a time, turned the motor to drop the piston, fed in a bunch of cotton string, rotated the piston up tight, and then removed the valve and changed the seal. People also do this with air pressure, but he used the string because it couldn't fail or leak like air can, which would let the valve fall in and require the heads to be pulled off. I think he charged me about 200 or so. It was smoking really heavy and this stopped it for a couple of years.
worn out rings usually smoke a lot when cold, and then ease up when hot. valve seals tend to smoke all the time, less at highway speeds and then heavy at idle and accleration.
oil is cheap. and it keeps the mosquitoes away....
For valve seals, I think this is a better option - several years ago a friend of mine replaced the valve seals on a dodge caravan v6 for me without pulling the heads. he pulled the valve covers and plugs, and then one cylinder at a time, turned the motor to drop the piston, fed in a bunch of cotton string, rotated the piston up tight, and then removed the valve and changed the seal. People also do this with air pressure, but he used the string because it couldn't fail or leak like air can, which would let the valve fall in and require the heads to be pulled off. I think he charged me about 200 or so. It was smoking really heavy and this stopped it for a couple of years.