Not me the car! Hello everyone, first thread and I'm nervous but here's goes..

Firstly, I tried searching for a solution but didnt find one. The problem is that my car (1990 GXL) starts to blow white smoke when it has been at low RPM for an extended amount of time, like say a long red light. Also, by low RPM i mean under 1000-1200.. I have found many threads about smoking at high RPM, but not at lows.

One more thing.. If it were to be a seal, would alumaseal help?

If flames must come my way, so be it. I just want her to get off the smokes.

 

Compression test it.You may have a bad seal.
although some guys use that "crap" it is just a band-aid and puts off the inevitable of a rebuild.

 

that would tell me if i have a bad coolant seal?
sorry if i wasnt clear but i was talking about the coolant seals, not the apex ones.
Thanks for responding though!

 

yes it's probably the coolant seals.

You should search the forum on the problem because it's Extremely common. If an apex seal blew you'd know it. Any way, the basic idea between the coolant seals is close to the idea of a head gasket. It's an o ring that is crushed between the housings and the plate. They seal the coolant passages so that no coolant leaks into the combustion chamber or exhaust into the coolant passages. The white smoke that you're seeing at LOW rpm is coolant leaking into the combustion chamber and being burned with your fuel/oil/air mixture. The reason it doesn't smoke at higher RPM is because once pressure is increased through higher rpm, the exhaust/ combustion pressure equalizes or exceeds that of the coolant. If you don't have it rebuilt the seals will slowly rupture more possibly causing exhaust to push coolant out to the point of overheating or allowing serious amounts of coolant to leak into the combustion chamber and preventing combustion as well as fouling out spark plugs.

A compression test can sometimes prove a seal rupture; however, white smoke in the exhaust is CLASSIC coolant leak description. Start there... If you want to check here's a simple way to see if exhaust is getting into your coolant also. Open the coolant overflow tank so that the tube is in the coolant but you can see inside. Idle the car until the thermostat opens (operating temperature is acheived). Have a buddy hold the accelerator at 4,000 RPM or so and watch the overfolw tank for a few minutes. If any bubbles come up then you have a definite idea of what's going on. 95 % chance that it's a coolant seal failure just from your description though. Good luck

 

Makes sense. Thank you for your help!

 

Search coolant leak in the search bar and you'll learn what type of seals you'll need. You should plan to rebuild or swap in a used engine from craigslist or something like like. Rebuilding is more reliable but takes take and money of course. Good luck

 

If the coolant is only going out the exhaust, and you are not pressurizing the coolant system with combustion gases, then Alumaseal may work for you. Although it is less likely to work on a 13b, there have been some successes. They type of failure is the key (direction of flow).

For $4.00 it might be worth a shot before you decide to tear the motor down for a rebuild.

(Yes, I have used that "crap" quite succesfully. )




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