Smoke question; I know there are thousands of these.
 

I bought a 87 gxl as a project car for the winter. I was told it has low oil pressure and from what I could understand it had been rebuilt pretty recently. It had an emissions delete job but was only halfway complete.
The air pump, thermowax/cold-start assist, and the crank case ventaliation was still there; sort of. It had a hose ran from the oil filler neck that vented in to the engine bay and then a cap over the vacuum nipple on the filler neck at the housing.

The oil pressure is around 10-15psi at idle (idles between 800-1200 depending on how it feels). The oil pressure then goes up to 40-50psi max. I haven't revved it very high other than a handful of times to see how the motor reacted. It is 40psi at around 4,000rpm.

I know that the oil pressure is most likely a failed front cover o-ring, right? I'm in the middle of trying to remove the front cover with the engine still in the car. Going to finish that up tomorrow. I know about the thrust bearings and having the clutch pedal pushed.

The problem I'm having though is the smoke. Even if I fix the oil pressure issue, I don't want to keep driving it with a cloud of smoke. I even tried to do the Lucas oil stabilizer and running 20w50 with no change.

It smokes on startup pretty bad warm/cold. The smoke is sort of gray but also has a blueish tint sometimes. I'm leaning towards it having rich conditions or the premix is too much. The spark plugs were dry and really black and fouled but it runs really smooth. After the initial smoke at startup it is fine .It smokes a little bit once in a while if you get on it but nothing horrible.
At startup the smoke lasts forever unless you go ahead and drive. Once you move it goes away pretty quick.
That's why I don't think anything too major. No bearing chunks in the oil pan either.
Ideas?

I'll lean towrds the oil control rings. Either the rebulder didn't replace the orings or the oil control rings/ rings are bad. The rings are difficult to find a crack if there is one. Don't waste money on anything that claims to reduce smoke. What's happening is oil is being pushed past the orings. Hold the rev at about 3500 rpm for about 30 seconds. If it smokes a lot, that's oil rings.

It will smoke like shit when idling but goes away as you drive.

The oil stabalizer is sworn by, by a lot of 1st gen guys. That's the only reason I used it.

I tried the rev test for smoke and it doesn't really smoke a lot. It is really random. The only tiime I can count on it to smoke is upon starting. Whether it is cold or warm, it'll smoke.

I'll update this tomorrow when I get the front cover off. If the o-ring is intact I'm going to go ahead and pull the motor.

The oring at the front cover doesn't cause smoking .
It'll cause low oil pressure . Your oil pressure problem
sounds like the infamous thermal pellet .

Did I read your first post correct ? There's a cap on the vacuum nipple ?
The 2 lines cannot be capped off . Either use a catch can
or vent it to atmosphere . There's hardly any oil that seeps out . I haven't had any problems for years .
If it is capped , that will cause smoking as well .
The nipple at center iron and filler tube needs to be vented
or use a catch can .

Ya..can't cap those nipples..they need to vent somewhere.

old gas will also cause smoking issues. if the fuel in the tank smells like paint varnish, drain it out and put new gas in.

Gas is fine. I am a little worried that it might have been over pre-mixed though.

I know the oring can't cause smoking. I'm not as worried about the smoking as I am the low oil pressure. I'm planning on doing a t2 swap this winter but I need to fix a few other things and it'd be nice to have it running to check my repairs afterwards ( suspension related).
I set up a catch can whenever I saw that they were like that. I didn't look the engine over too well when I bought it. I was just happy it was rust free underneath.

When I pulled the thermal pellet there wasn't a spring there. It looks like it has the atkins thermal pellet? I'll have to post a picture of it later. Do you still need the spring with the Atkin's thermal pellet? I can't find an answer. I know you don't for the racing beat one.

https://www.rx7club.com/2nd-generati...q-asap-753219/
Edit: I just found this link. So could this be causing my low oil pressure? I know the po rebuilt the engine and then the coolant seals went bad after a few months and he rebuilt it again; It was only a few months ago because I looked at his posts on the forum. I think it had this oil pressure issue right after he rebuilt it.

The spring has to go in there.

if the oil pressure got low enough then the oil seals will dig into the irons and wear out the seal cases as well as the irons, of course the front stat bearing will seize shortly after that.

while fixing the front cover o-ring i would probably pull the front stat gear and inspect it, if it's showing copper on more than 50% of the face then this is a possibility(do NOT rotate the engine while the gear is out).

the thermal pellet should have a spring but sometimes it gets stuck in the e-shaft.

Alright, I found the spring; it was stuck up in the e-shaft a ways.

I didn't see any copper pieces in the oil pan or the oil when I drained it. I drained it in to a pan and then got a screen and pretended like I was an old school miner sifting for gold. I know that there can be trace amounts that I can't see but it is a good indication that not a lot of damage has been done.

I got the front cover removed, after finding out that one of my oil cooler lines had a small crack in it. I'm going to just replace both with stainless steel lines. I knew it was leaking but thought it was from the fitting. How difficult is it to replace both lines? It looks pretty hard to work around the radiator support.

Anyway, when I removed the front cover a little orange washer?seal? and the o-ring were stuck on the front cover. The o-ring was torn and the orange ?thing? was really stretched out and wasn't in a circular shape at all. I am very glad I was right about what was causing the low oil pressure. Still not sure on the smoke, it could be a leaky injector and too much premix(with the omp running as well). I think the po said he was doing a 1oz to 1gal or 128:1. That and it had 0w50 oil... which is pretty thin for a street rotary, huh?
I'll post pictures.
(Orange thing is the teflon o-ring?. I guess s5's don't have them, which is most of my rotary experience.)

i've never seen an orange teflon ring, they're usually white.

if he took the oil seals out of the rotors while he attempted rebuild #2 then they may have lost their seal. this applies to OEM seals, i haven't had any problem reusing the viton aftermarket seals.

thick premix with thin oil when cold could be the cause.

Yeah, I have no idea. I'm sure it is just discolored or something. I will update. I'm going to use this post to ask questions about things while I'm doing a lot of maintenance work.

+1
Or the oil control springs could have been installed backwards, oil pickup tube blocked/clogged. There is a numbers of things that could have went wrong. After you put the cover together, I would do a oil pressure test.

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Work has been crazy and I haven't had time to post pictures. I have the o-rings ordered but I still haven't ordered oil cooler lines; I'm going with ss braided lines since they are around the same price of OEM replacement lines. Any suggestions on where to buy them at?

I'm also trying to decide if I should go ahead and pull the oil pan off completely or if I can just use gasket sealant on the front cover/oil pan surface. I don't want to develop a leak but it is also a pita to pull the pan.

Corks port has a good Set of oil cooler lines.

Update.

I got the o-ring and teflon ring in today. Put them in, used hylomar to hold them in place. Then used gasket sealant instead of the gasket. Had every bolt but one in and then over tightened the last one. Going to have to wait until next weekend to fix it but I'm waiting on oil cooler lines and an omp block off kit anyway.
The oil pan bolts are a pita to do with the motor still in the car. It didn't help that I kept trying to put one of the bolts in, only to realize the PO had bent it somehow. It was acting cross threaded and I knew there was no way I cross threaded a bolt with my hand... ^_^