Doc, I'd be willing to bet a case of beer that there is nothing wrong with Brian's rings. I, myself, have thought many times my rings were toasted. WRONG, it was always something else. :Brow:For example, when I broke in my lunati cam, my motor was burning oil so bad it was smoking like crazy. What caused it was a misaligned power valve gasket causing my primary float bowl to flood my motor with TONS of liquid gas. Once i fixed the gasket, the smoke went away almost immediately. Brian is running a new Q-Jet, so I can't help but be a tad skeptical of that carb.
As I said earlier, once you get all the vacuum leaks solved then it is time to tune the car ... your pinging is most likely due to distributor timing not set correctly and / or proper carb tuning. DO NOT REPEATEDLY DRIVE THE CAR CAUSING IT TO PING EXCESSIVELY - every time you motor pings, it causes small amounts of damage to the piston surface. There is no point in doing it repeatedly ... If you hear it ping, you try and find the cause and make a change / adjustment. If it pings again, don't continue to hammer it - again test, and make a change. was it pinging all the time like light acceleration or only under heavy acceleration ? Do you have a vacuum gauge ? you can get one pretty cheap and will be pretty useful in the next few steps Did you install the oil gauge ?? what is your pressure cold at idle, warm at idle, and warm off idle ?? As far as the smoke - do you have dual exhaust ? if so, is it coming out of both pipes pretty evenly or alot more so on one side ?
Ok, so i just got back into town from South Carolina and immediately started working on the buick again. In SC i stayed with my uncle who has his own well-established shop. He said to check the timing/advance/distributor and that it is prob detonation. So first thing i did was check the timing. My dad and neighbor "ford guy" did it before and thought they could see the timing mark. But i found it and it was was up and away from the marks. So i turned the distributor and got it within range(between the 0 and 4) and the car settled down some. Put it in drive and it didn't shut off, so that was good. Smoke coming mainly out of the driver side now. A pretty good amount, mostly on startup. As for the pinging, i tried the screwdriver trick: no luck. To me it sounded like it was coming out of the passenger side of the carburetor. Maybe out of that whole that goes into the intake, or kinda just the back passenger side inside the carb. Not sure.... o No: Oh and glad to be back on here after a week!!:beers2: edit: havent hooked up oil gauge, i dont have a vacuum gauge
Have you pulled the rocker cover on the side that is smoking and looked to see if the oil is draining back????? Also,,,,If the vac modulator is leaking it can suck oil up from the transmission and smoke like a freight train....and it is possible that the carb is dumping too much fuel thru a leak that is on the inside of the carb,,, At this point there is not a lot left except rings or bad valve seals allowing oil to come into the combustion chamber....Refresh my memory again, what was the figures in the compression test???? If they were strong, then rings most likely aint it,,,, then one would look at valve seals or vac modulator.....
Umm..I pulled the rocker cover to fix the rocker seating but that is it. I didnt do a compression test so i wouldnt know. haha. One potential problem is that i didnt apply a brush tack or a copper spray to the exhaust ports. I just put some light rtv around the tops....i thought brush tack was just a brush for rtv...didnt know they were different til now. ou: My uncle in SC said he that if there is a slight intake seal that it could be sucking extra oil causing it to go into the combustion chamber. True? Btw i have no idea what a vac modulator is...lol
Oh that thing. It got pulled out a bit when we initially took the intake off. But i checked underneath and it was still connected. Something that i forgot to mention that is probably important is that the pinging noise, is not in a rythmic pattern. It makes noise at the exact time as the exhaust. If that makes sense....The noise goes along with the exhaust noise, not like a pinging over and over at the same exact time....hard to explain
If you have a leak in the exhaust system, it can givea ''tick'' noise on accelleration.... the vac modulator is a canister that is on the side of the trans that causes it to shift when the engine has built up vacume again after accelleration... it has a diaphragm in it that can get a hole in it and then it will allow the engine vacume to suck trans fluid into the intake manifold....smokes like a freight train when that happens and will also lower the spark knock resistance that gasoline has.... and yep,,, if the intake passages arnt sealed good it can suck engine oil in to the intake ..... is your oil level dropping in the trans or engine?????You need to do a compression test to be sure you are not in fact dealing with a ring/ valve sealing problem....untill you have a compression test you are just shooting in the dark,,, hoping to hit the solution.... draw a diagram of the cyls and run the test and write the numbers down in the correct locations and then you will be able to tell if it is possible to make the engine run right.....
Ok so my dad just got home. Me and him are real close and he helps me alot on the car, but i actually know more than him about engines cuz of this site. But he asked me if i got a chance to work on the car today and i told him that i have to vacuum and compression test it but i cant find anywhere to lend them and i dont think i have the money to buy them until i get paid again. He says that i should just put the old 2bbl intake and carb back on because his logic is that if the cam and lifters arent causing the smoking, then it has to be the 4bbl intake or carb. So by switching back will solve to smoking and i will actually get to drive it to school before the end of the year.....I told him i have to see it the intake is leaking by vacuum cuz even if i put the 2bbl back on i wouldnt know its on right without the vacuum gauge. He doesnt see how it could be the rings since they were fine before and we didnt mess with them....this is just one of those times dad isnt the most encouraging.....:af:
Hey man, we've all been there. Did you check autozone. Im pretty sure they'll rent you those tools for fee. Im 100% certain of the compression tester cause I've seen them rent it, and I'm sure they would have a vacuum gauge too. You might have to pay up front but you get 100% refund when you return the tool.
Went to Autozone, they loan out compression testers but not vacuum gauges. So i bought the vac gauge and rented the comp tester. Hooked up the vacuum gauge.....i read the directions and was still unsure of where i should hook it. The only thing i could get to work was plug the vac on the distributor and put the gauge on the carb where that dist. vac goes. It read 0......reved the engine a bit and it would go up....i could still hear an air leak, which made me mad. Looking around, whatever this thing is that is part of the carb and bolts to the intake has massive air leaking out. You can see the exhuast build up around it. Can I take this off/loosen it without messing anything up? I dont even know what it is. So is it missing a gasket under it or try tightening it or what?
Oh damn. You need to put a cover on to seal that. I wouldn't run the choke. So just make a plate to cover that hole.
Take it out altogether?? What is the choke for and why take it out? I pulled it up and its like a coil thing inside of a bowl. Under the bowl was like half of a gasket and I could see where the air was commin out. Spring break up for you too Cason?
Do you think you could use RTV to seal it up? I don't know how big the leak is. However, that is probably the source of your ticking noise especially since you made the "with the exhaust rhythm" comment.:TU: Spring break was 3 weeks ago.:laugh:
Maaaaaaan do i hope that is the source of the pinging. Im not sure if rtv would work. I might be able to make a cover for it like i did the EGR hole. Do you think that would be best? Or leave the choke there and try to seal it? Only like 5 weeks of school left. I at least wanna drive it to school for a lil bit before its over. Oh today is the last day for me. Really sucks that i gotta go back to school tomorrow.
Hey Brian When you take the choke off there is a second piece under it thats like a bowl right? Get some cardboard, like the back of a pad of paper or better some gasket material, its only a few dollars at autozone, and make a gasket to go under that bowl smooth some high heat RTV on both sides of the gasket you made, put that on first, then the bowl part, then the upper choke part with the coil on it. Bolt id town nicely and that should take care of it. WHen I had my intake off I discovered that no one really sells a gasket for that so you have to make one. I also had the "tick ping" noise AND the black soot from exhaust on the intake....until I sealed that up. No leaks in 3 yrs now...
Oh ok. Ill try to make a cover or look into sealin it this week. If that solves the pinging it will be a miracle. Then i think it should be good, minus maybe some timing ray:
