Advice

[Sailor]

Being mechanically inept I could use a little advice. When my son was visiting we went for a ride and he told me my right exhaust was blowing blue under hard acceleration. Today when I went to put the bike away for the winter I did my usual with the sea foam and fired it up to run the gas out of the carbs. There was a lot of blue smoke from the right exhaust and when I held my hand to it it was much hotter than the left one which was not blowing blue. After running for a couple minutes the blue cleared up and the exhaust cooled down. All pistons are running fine. Before I take it to the stealer next spring for a tune up I would like to get an idea of what is happening. Any suggestions?

[RandyR]

are the carbs sync'd? thats probably where to start.

 

what do the 4 plugs look like, by cylinder.

 

what model, not important at this point, but may become important later.

[SMSgt]

If you get blue smoke just after starting then it goes away there is a good possibility that you have a valve seal going out. Not real hard to change but the stealer will want your first born so be ready:mo money:. If you have them adjust your valves they might be able to check it out for you at that time. Good luck.

[Sailor]

Thanks for the info, now I know what to expect.

[RandyR]

The valves are easy to adjust yourself, and it should be done every 26,000 miles.

 

I wouldn't get paniced into thinking about major valve problems yet, as that is VERY rare.

 

Do the easy and obvious things first.

 

again what model/year of venture and what is the mileage on it?

[Sailor]

It is an 02 with 38,000 K on it. Last summer I came back from Nelson and heading west from Hope I was doing 170-180K on the freeway for some distance. I was just keeping up with the traffic. I think it was after that when it started.

[V7Goose]

Being mechanically inept I could use a little advice. When my son was visiting we went for a ride and he told me my right exhaust was blowing blue under hard acceleration. Today when I went to put the bike away for the winter I did my usual with the sea foam and fired it up to run the gas out of the carbs. There was a lot of blue smoke from the right exhaust and when I held my hand to it it was much hotter than the left one which was not blowing blue. After running for a couple minutes the blue cleared up and the exhaust cooled down. All pistons are running fine. Before I take it to the stealer next spring for a tune up I would like to get an idea of what is happening. Any suggestions?

Well sir, it is impossible to diagnose it from here with only that info, but I'd be pretty worried if it was mine. Blowing lots of blue under hard acceleration is not valve guides or valve seals - those tend to cause lots of blue on engine start after sitting overnight, but after it burns off the first oil, you never see any smoke while running.

 

Typically, lots of blue under hard acceleration is rings or damaged cylinder wall. With so few miles on the bike, it certainly is not worn out, and the fact that it is only smoking from one side supports a diagnosis of problems with a single cylinder.

 

The very low miles could actually be a contributor to this problem; there is a very slight possibility that during one or more of those extended "sit and rot" sessions that the bike has done over the past nine years that fuel has seeped continually through a carb and open intake valve and slowly trickled by the rings, building up nasty varnish that has caused the rings to stick. But like I said, that is unlikely. More plausible would be a broken ring or some contaminate like a small stone that dropped into the cylinder when the plugs were changed. Another typical cause would be some rust starting from condensation during winter storage - that not only ruins the cylinder wall, but the rust gets forced into the rings and causes them to stick.

 

A compression test or leak down test would help pinpoint the bad cylinder and how bad the problem is, but the only way you are going to actually know is to tear down the engine. I certainly would not continue to ride it since that kind of problem can get much worse pretty quick. I hope you find that it is minor instead of major!

Goose

[Yammer Dan]

Hurts to admit it but he could be right. But if it is clearing up after you run it a while it is not rings. Just wrong advice. If you like tearing down motors go ahead. I would either check the cylinders to find guilty one or just give each one a good dose of Marvel Mystery Oil and leave sit for a while til it drained off and got a chance to soak a little. Few days would be good. Crank it over without the plugs to clear it before you try to restart. Might loosen those rings up and save you a rebuild. Might not. It very well could be a valve seal. Riding is probally not going to hurt it any more than it has. If it is the rings they may come loose there could be a lot of miles left in there. Most of the smoke may go away if you get them loose.

 

I'll probally get told this is wrong but I DON'T CARE!!