Strange smoke in engine bay (not through exhaust)
 

Hi! I've rather recently replaced the head gasket on my car (1994 XJ40) and there is no smoke on startup. Once the car has been running for a while smoke begins to build up in the engine bay. Specifically, when looking at the engine from the passengers side of the car, the bottom left underneath the exhaust manifold cover. Does anyone have any ideas/experience with this? Also, there seems to be a squeaking sound coming from the engine and i suspect but hope it's not the harmonic balancer. The fuel rail also has a sort of pumping sound coming from it, and i'm not sure what that could be. Thanks for taking the time to read :)

Likely some oil/grease found its way onto the exhaust manifold and/or pipe during the recent engine work. Might take some time to burn off. Or a leaky cam cover dripping oil onto the exhaust manifold, perhaps

Cheers
DD

I like Doug's theory about some oil spilled on the manifold or bell housing during the head gasket replacement that is smoking once it heats up.

When you replaced the head gasket did you install a new cam cover gasket set including the plug seals and the little half-moon seals at the firewall end of the head? Those are a common leak point at the rear end of the head.

The EGR pipe connects under the EGR valve - did that get tightened back up?

Regarding the squeak, when our harmonic balancer began to fail we would get a loud squeal at startup, then only when revving the engine would the squeal return.

Squeaks on the front of the engine could also indicate a failing bearing or bushing in the alternator, water pump, power steering pump or secondary air injection pump... You can often find the source with an inexpensive mechanic's stethoscope. Carefully hold the probe on the body of each component near the pulley, taking care not to touch the pulley or moving belt.

Please keep us informed.

Cheers,

Don

Belts can also make that sound - spray some wd40 near the compressor belt while the engine is running ...if the noise goes away, it's a belt.

Larry

Update: The squeaking thankfully was the belts, a bit of wd40 and the sound went away. The strange thing is that the oil doesn't start burning until the car has been running for a short while. I felt all around the cam cover gasket and those halfmoons and i didn't find any trace of an oil leak coming from there. I'm worried that maybe it could have been the head gasket seating improperly? A bit of smoke started to also come from the exhaust after it ran for a while and i know it's not the exhaust stem seals because i just replaced those myself. The oil levels are going down so i know there must be a leak somewhere.