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Would backed out manifold bolts & smoke at the manifold burn oil & smoke at tailpipe?

DonkRado

NAXJA Forum User
Would backed out manifold bolts & smoke at the manifold burn oil & smoke at tailpipe?

'90 4.0 Renix
Ok, I'm really sorry that I could've searched more extensively on this, but I have an exam in 2 hours and I have about 4 pages of essay to write before it. I didn't find anything directly related in the 20 or so threads that I scanned through. I noticed a coolant leak on the XJ earlier this afternoon and decided to take a 10 minute break from studying to swap the hose and clear my head. Of course, disaster strikes and the job ends up taking considerably longer and plenty of coolant is dropped. After I got it all back together I cleaned as much coolant off of the underhood components as I could and cranked it up to burp the cooling system. As I was watching the spilled coolant burn off, I decided to check up on my CCV system a bit, and blipped the throttle while watching the FAI return hose. Blah blah blah, to sum this up, several of the manifold bolts have backed out and I'm getting some smoke leaking out from where the manifolds mount to the block. Can't tell which manifold at this point, but it doesn't absolutely stink, so I'm guessing it's the intake.

Here's the $64K question:
Could a bad seal at the manifolds be causing my excessive white/grey smoke from the tailpipe and really high oil consumption? I'm planning to get a leakdown test in the next few days, but is there a chance that this is the cause and not piston ring blowby?

I'll just add these bolts to the list of the finger tight or backed out ones I've found since I've had the car (under a month). It's amazing to find so many loose bolts on a "new" *cough* excuse me, !REMANUFACTURED! engine with just 36K miles on it.

I guess it's a good thing that I expected a project when I got this car. I just didn't expect to be rebuilding it from the ground up.


Oh, and another thing... I know this is unlikely to help me, but don't most or some of the remanufactured engine sellers have a replacement warranty that I might be able to check into? Would it be transferrable if they did?
Unfortunately, I get the feeling that even if they did, it might have been voided by poor PO maintenance. I'll have to look through the paperwork again to find out the remanufacturer, but that'll have to wait for later. Thank you for any help guys.
 
Re: Would backed out manifold bolts & smoke at the manifold burn oil & smoke at tailpipe?

I can't see your loose manifold causing oil consumption.Bad rings or valve seals are suspects there.....as for the reman. warranty,most if not all of them are non-transferable.I researched alot of them when I was on the market for one.hth
 
Re: Would backed out manifold bolts & smoke at the manifold burn oil & smoke at tailpipe?

Yeah..
I figured as much.

I should've just researched it more instead of studying for my exam after all. The Jeep blew out another heater hose on the way to the exam, and I had to fix it on the side of the road. Got to the exam with 20 minutes left and may as well have just left it all blank. There goes the A in that class.
And there's nothing quite like taking an exam in a full classroom while covered in grease and coolant. It's not distracting at all.
Anyway,
I'm looking forward to a couple of days off now. I'll get to go through the suspension and tighten it all up. The jury is currently out on whether or not I'm going to be putting any money into new steering components. I need to get the leakdown test done before I decide to drop another dime on the XJ.
I'm becoming more and more certain that the engine is terminal.
When I parked the car at school... I freaked out because I thought I had a fire on or near the gas tank... Plumes of smoke were coming out from that area on the drivers side of the car.
It finally subsided with no explosions, even though I halfway waited for the firetruck siren all through my exam.
After class, I crawled under the car to take a peek, and the new muffler that I put in on Sunday is bleeding oil at several of the welds.
So... the new muffler is shot, too. If I'm lucky I'll be able to swap it under defective return as it shouldn't be leaking anything anyway, but I seriously doubt they'll do an even swap for a new muffler.

I have to wonder when I'm supposed to start getting pissed at the guy who sold me the car claiming it was a 'BRAND NEW' engine with 32K, new battery, radiator hoses, the ONLY rust on one door (I didn't know that rear floor pans came from the factory with an 8X8 breather window for the carpet), everything well maintained.. and so on and so forth. I managed to tell myself that I got a great deal on the truck for a while... the more I poke around and see neglected, rotted, and fingertight (or backed out altogether) stuff, the less I believe it.
If the diagnosis on the engine goes the way that I expect it to, I'm really going to have a hard time convincing myself of it.

I don't know.. He seemed like a real nice guy, and he said that he didn't know about the massive oil leaks or the knocking in the front end (half disintegrated U-Joint). I'd really like to believe him.

Ok, Ok... I'm done.
/rant

Oh, last thing!@!@ I don't suppose anyone is going to be running through Central VA down to the Raleigh-Durham area for the Christmas holiday? It's just me and my big dog. But really, I might just have to buy a case of oil and bite the bullet for the trip down to the parents house. I just hate to pollute that much, and the cat would probably turn into a cherry bomb anyway. Ok, ok.... double all-nighters during exams make Homer something, something.

//rant
 
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