Blue smoke !

[Wilfredjaguar]

Hello,

I still own my Series 3. Did lots of improvements, even an engine swap.
And that's were the problems began..

The new engine was supposed to be okay. Hadn't been used for a few years so I decided to go for it.
It only applied the engine block, cylinder head and distribution.
The old one had some rattles and needed to be restored, but I could use all the parts which the new one didn't have.

After some miles this new engine produced blue smoke coming from the exhaust at the back of the car, especially when accelerating. I suspect one of the piston rings on cylinder two, the spark plug looks bad there, black and I can smell some oil. Also a pressure leak test on cylinder two proves that there is a problem with the head gasket, I can see the water level in the radiator rising. So, the cylinder head needs to be lifted anyway to replace the gasket and perhaps the oil consumption can be explained as well ?
I can't figure out how in this case oil can get into the combustion chamber actually, there is no oil channel going through the gasket. Except for the front and back of the cylinder head. My explanation would be a broken or blocked piston ring, but what could be the relation with the head gasket ?

Have a nice weekend, or what is left of it and try to keep cool !

Wilfred

(Account name previously was Infojaguar)

 

[Fraser]

Answered on your other post. It is confusing to have two posts on the same car and problem, Might be useful to get a monitor to combine your two posts.

As regards your engine, I think you are now in engine-out-for-overhaul territory, I'm afraid. The plus side is these are lovely engines to work on but make sure your engine stand can take the weight ! I used a heavy duty one when I rebuilt my engine in the early 90s.

 

[Wilfredjaguar]

Hi, thanks.
I requested to remove one of the topics indeed, this is stil pending I believe.

There are very little tricks left I’m afraid for this engine, so a deeper surgery will be the next step..

 

[Wilfredjaguar]

Good morning,

Long time since my last update, but finally I finished my XK engine 4.2 Series 3 project.
I took out the engine which produced blue smoke, dismantled it and tried to forget this one as quickly as I could.
I discovered defective piston rings on two pistons as well as damage on the liners. So this was obvious the cause of the blue smoke..

Anyway, I decided to rebuild my old very first engine so a company put in new liners for me, refitted the crankshaft and pistons with new rings and bearings. From here I took over and renewed about everything like the oil pump, all head studs, distribution parts, valves, bearings, repainted the engine block etc. I’m very happy with the result, I realize I should have done this from the beginning on, to reuse another old engine is risky and often ends up in frustration. At least, this is my personal experience.

I did a proper break in, renewed the oil and filter for the second time now and retorqued the head bolts after 1000 Km.
It’s running really smoothly, without any strange noises, rattling or whatever. Not sure about the oil consumption yet. But for what I understood this will get better over the coming miles. Really happy to be able to reset the counter to zero !

One question though about the air flow meter, I read about modifications with 100uF capacitors and a certain resistor which can be mounted to improve the idle behavior.

I tried to find it here on this forum, does anybody recognizes this ?

Cheers,

Wilfred

 

[Fraser]

I see the machine shop have put in lipped liners. The photo above shows the very common cracking problem that I had. I managed to find another, uncracked block. Without the lipped liners you would suffer frequent head gasket failures. Later engines were slotted between the bores, and the machined passages on the bore sides were abandoned.

 

[Wilfredjaguar]

Hi, thanks.

I have been told that this was the best solution in my case indeed.
The only problem was that I couldn’t find a willing company. Most of them were reluctant and only wanted to do the complete engine restauration, or even bring the car. Understandable maybe, but I wanted to finish it myself and luckily I managed to find someone who was willing to help me and also happened to be a few blocks away from my house and very familiar with the XK engine !

How strange can things go.

Wilfred

 

[Fraser]

Good luck with the engine. It should be OK now you have the lipped liners. When I had HGF I wasn't aware of the cracking problem so got another HGF only a few months later ! I was sold an uncracked 7L block to replace the 8L one, and was told by this person who had a business rebuilding XK engines, that his experience was 7 out of 10 7L blocks were cracked when he stripped the engines, and 8 out of 10 of the so-called "stronger" 8L block. Even the slotted block didn't completely cure the problem, and HGF was fairly common after about 80-90k miles.

 

[Wilfredjaguar]

Hope you're fine now.
I also read about a modification on the thermostat, which is to remove the small nozzle and drill a second hole oposit.
It seems that the thermal shock after opening of the thermostat is one of the major causes for the cracks.
So, I did this just to be on the safe side.