car was an auto, 90 GXL, i swapped it to five speed, it had an issue of running, then the idle dropping, surging back up (maybe by about 1,000 RPMS) repeatedly, and it would just start POURING smoke out the exhaust.


when it was auto i'd literally have to turn the ac on, put it in L, with the ebrake on, to keep the idle from surging and it smoking out the neighborhood literally so BAD you couldnt see. Literally, no joke. it was like a smoke grenade. a continuous one!

I looked up possible causes for the car to burn ATF in the FSM..it didnt smell sweet to me, so i ruled out coolant. it says the auto tranny can cause burning of ATF if two components are bad, one is the vacuum diaphragm, which i capped off, didn't help, the other is an internal tranny problem.

Well ladies and gents, the tranny is out of the car, and the five speed is in, so ATF shouldnt be an issue. but the car will take a goof five-10 seconds of cranking to start. and will just POUR smoke for about ten minutes. I literally cannot start it if there are people outside.

Strange thing is, no overheating. I havent seen any noticable oil loss either. I dont SMELL coolant, that sweet smell. it smells like oil to me, but g'damn, oil seals that trashed that it would cause hard cranking and then literally smokescreen the neighborhood to the point the FD would be called?


after the car runs for about half an hour (depending on how many days ive let it sit) it just emits a steady but very low amount of smoke that is blue, which im sure is oil. although very low on how much. But jesus, whenever that idle starts surging, there goes the smoke. like CRAZY.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

maybe a fuel injector is getting stuck open?

 

I'm new to Rotaries in general, but you said the smoke was blue and it couldn't be ATF, so could it be a malfunction with the metering oil pump? .. just an idea (might be a stupid one)

 

idle and smoke...have you check your timing?

 

if it smokes blue when cold its probably the oil control rings are bad, as well as if blue when running for a while


if its black it may be really rich, maybe adjust the lean rich screw by the shock tower?

 

Timing is factory set, should have no reason for anyone to have tampered with it. Its definitely not black = rich. It is very much a whitish blue. But it doesnt SMELL like coolant. thats what I dont get. and the car has been driven numerous times as auto before i did the swap. never low. But like i said, maybe it is coolant and gotten worse, but i would smell it wouldnt I? cant miss the smell of antifreeze. i swear it smells like oil.

it literally will take about ten seconds to crank in the morning, then smoke screen. and literally so bad you cannot keep it running without fire dept called. the few times since the swap was done that i DID manage to let her run was thankfully in part to high wind.

its pale white smoke, THICK smoke. like I said you cannot see ten feet in front of your face. but if you somehow let it run enough to burn that crap off, it just casually smokes like the 25 year old motor it is. albeit with much more of a blue oil tint to it.


btw, kompressor logic, hello, its been about ten years. used to talk on AIM all the time.

 

not the OMP. when I bought the car the OMP was bad, i pulled the code and verified. it was in limp mode. Replaced the OMP months ago.

 

this was the car a few months ago. i cant for the life of me remember if it was warmed up already, but I believe it was cold.




its now harder to crank from cold, and will smoke your neighborhood out. and if the idle starts surging, good god.

 

I think your oil control rings are kaput, let it sit for a day, roll the engine over by hand a couple turns, than pull the plugs. They will probably be drenched in oil

 

needs a rebuild, lemme know if you aren't planning to do it on your own.

 

compression wise she is solid, just smokes like a damn chimney for reasons im still trying to diagnose.

 

blue smoke, oil burning.

you could try various mechanics in a bottle, may make it better temporarily or it may even make it worse.

the oil seals that keep oil from the combustion chambers are just rubber o-rings, 30 year old rubber o-rings, like the coolant seals, and the junk 3 piece factory apex seals waiting to escape their widening prison cell door.


just be happy it managed to actually go this long without something even worse happening.

 

How many miles on the engine?

 

hmm yeah looks like oil control rings

 

Well, I think its coolant. I had the car sit dead cold, pulled the filler cap off, watched the coolant when i revved the motor, the coolant actually got sucked down, not spat out, so I'm assuming no combustion gasses are entering the cooling system if its pulling down coolant, not spitting it out.

Let the car cool down, threw a tube of that powdered aluma seal in it, topped it off with water to wash it down the system, and just let her run for half an hour or more.

Next three times ive started it = no more smoking out the entire freaking neighborhood to the point the fire department would be called.

It just makes no sense, since the aluma seal fixed it, it had to have been coolant related, but with it smoking so bad to literally blanket the neighborhood (Like I mentioned previously, if people were outside I couldnt start the car, it was that bad), I figure with coolant burning that much, i'd have overheating issues like crazy, but I didnt. I did however notice the coolant level would occasionally drop.

So long story short, pretty sure it was coolant, Alumaseal to the rescue, hope it holds.

 

Next is to find out where the vacuum is pulling the coolant from. Seems a little odd for the standard coolant seal answer but you never know.

 

I have no idea, but since using that aluma seal it hasnt fumigated the neighborhood anymore. I just hope it holds like I said.

I'm going to order some silicone vacc lines and re do them all one day, pull the TB off, so I can get a look and see if maybe something is disconnected.

 

dude, seriously save up for a rebuild and probably a heater core. All Alumaseal does is bandaid it, and the particles float around and plug up your heater core. After awhile the hole it plugged will wash back out and you'll start burning coolant again.

It sucking the coolant down when you his the gas is normal, your suddenly making the water pump spin faster, which makes it cavitate slightly and suck the coolant down, than when it returns to a constant RPM, it comes back up. What you were looking for were small bubbles when it was idling and at normal temp at the coolant neck, which you won't get now being as the hole is plugged

its really a ticking time bomb, worse than a normal rotary lol

 

yep, its a temporary fix and it will fail sooner or later.

putting silicone hoses on the engine isn't going to buy you more time.

 

I wasnt expecting it to buy any more time, I was moreso hoping to find this vac leak that has been eluding me and just replace the brittle rubber hoses with fresh replacements.

 

Pulled the oil filler cap off today, noticed this... So I take it my diagnosis of coolant was confirmed?

 

you've been working on rotaries for a decade but you haven't noticed the typical oil cap snot before?

it's normal for short trip cars that don't get thoroughly warmed up often.

 

Since I was 16, yeah. im referring to the white milky substance that is on the cap and almost covering my oil filler neck on the inner diameter lol.

I simply said ive been working on them for a decade, I dont know everything, I learn something new every day in fact, but I've come along way imho. Which speaking of which, you said you have a shop in CFL right?

 

since you haven't DROVE it drove it, seeing white milky goo on the oil fill isn't surprising. now if you drain your oil and its a milkshake, thats a different story

 

That snot is normal, even more so in colder temperatures.

It's just oil mist mixed with condensation inside the oil cap and filler neck. If you drive the car to normal operating temperature, that will go away. Sitting in the driveway idling till warm won't do it.

I used to have a very short commute and I would get that in the winter time. Since I now live further from work, I don't get it anymore.