When I start my car, half of my garage is white with smoke. It used to be a small puff when starting, but the poor car sat for so long that that isn't possible anymore. Any advice? I have started to disassemble the car, to try and replace the head gasket. Best way to drain the fluids?

 

After a long sit, like all winter or whatever, some AJ6 engines will smoke like hell for quite a while until all the oil sitting in the cylinders has burnt off.

I noticed that when I was shopping for my car - all the test drives I did on cars that had been sitting started out smoking up the neighbourhood but eventually cleared.

Of course this was smoke of the bluish-grey variety and not the dreaded WHITE smoke signifying water in the cylinders ..hows the oil on the dipstick? murky or fairly clear? Maybe you've got a lot of condensation? If you open the oil filler cap, do you see a yellowish sludge? - cars that don't get much use or sit a lot have a real soup in there.

You could have a gasket prob of course, but if the car runs, why not take it for a spin and see if the smoke clears up?

Just a suggestion!!

cheers and good luck

Larry

 

+1 on what Larry said.
Sometimes a good ol' muck out of the intake tract works wonders!

Lots of soup can hide in the crannies,take a look,you will be surprised!

cheers,Jim

 

My question is will a head gasket replacement fix the problem altogether? The oil in the dipstick is still golden, and not really sludge like. Same under the camshafts. I almost have the intake manifold off (brake fluid? hoses still attached) and I noticed a black almost burnt look around the edges of the inside of the gasket. Could it be the viscosity of the oil used? If the oil is too thin for the car could it seep through?
Edit: There was oil in the chambers of the spark plugs too, I tried taking out as much as possible, advice for cleaning cylinders through there?

 

Hi jaguarguy13,

If your head gasket has failed the car would probably run very rough with little power and you would have a large cloud of white steam coming from the exhaust.

If your smoke is due to burning oil in the combustion chambers, the cause is usually hardened valve stem seals, particularly on the exhaust side since the engine leans in that direction. +2 on Larry's and Jim's suggestions to drive the car around and see if the smoke dissipates.

The sludge you are finding in the intake manifold is completely normal for an XJ40. The breather system draws oily fumes from the crankcase directly into the intake just ahead of the throttle body, so the buildup of black oily deposits is inevitable.

The oil in the spark plug wells is due to hardened cam cover seals. Replacing the main cam cover seal and the six spark plug well seals is easy and will resolve the issue. Cleaning the oil out of the wells isn't a fun job. If you have a vacuum pump and a small enough nozzle or tube to fit around the spark plugs, you may be able to suck the oil out. Or, you can roll a paper towel into a tube and slide it down the well around the spark plug and allow it to soak up as much oil as it can, then repeat with the other end of the towel tube. Once you get most of the oil out you can remove the plug and use a twisted paper towel to soak up the remaining oil. I'll be interested to hear if any other members have come up with better options.

Cheers,

Don

 

On the way to the head gasket, I did clean out the spark plugs and i vacuumed out as much oil as I could from the cylinders. After doing that I started the car and it smoked a lot still. It probably is the exhaust stem seals (I've read similar situations), would they be difficult to replace? Is there anyway to suck out the oil that built up inside? Thanks again for the help.

 

The exhaust (and intake) valve seals can be replaced. It's easiest with the head on the bench, but I believe some have done it without removing the head. For info search this forum as well as the archives at the Jag-Lovers forum.

All oil that has seeped into your combustion chambers should burn out in a relatively short amount of time. If the smoke persists even after you've driven the car a few miles, one possibility is that while the car was sitting for so long the rings of one or more pistons became stuck in their grooves and are no longer properly sealing against the cylinder walls, allowing crankcase oil into the combustion chambers. A simple compression test on all cylinders should tell you if that is a possibility.

Cheers,

Don

 

The car sat for around a year, so my (albeit hopeful) guess is that the piston rings are alright. Any advice for removing the camshafts from the timing chain? Now this may be a myth I heard somewhere, but if you're tachometer remains very steady at idle, your compression is likely alright? Correct me if I'm wrong, heard it a while back.

 

Sometimes the transmission modulator leaks into the vacuum lines creating a white smoke ( with bluish tint in sunlight ). Check vacuum line from modulator and see if it is oily.

 

Would you know what the transmission modulator looks like on this car? Or where it's located for that matter?

 

Hi Jagfixer,

Are you certain the XJ40 has a vacuum transmission modulator? As far as I know, the ZF 4HP24 transmission used on the '90 and later cars is all electronically controlled, as is the GM 4L80-E used on the XJRs, XJ12s and XJS. And I think I recall that the hydro-mechanical ZF 4HP22 used on the '88-'89 cars used a Throttle Valve (TV) cable instead of a vacuum modulator.

Any additional info that may help jaguarguy13 will be appreciated.

Cheers,

Don