Smoke and tinging after engine was open.

[PigGuy]

This was one of my larget tasks I've done. I had to remove the intake when I thought I dropped a valve spring keeper in there, while I was tearing things apart, I figured I'd replace the timing chain. I got the whole thing back together and started it up.

There was a bit of a metallic tinging at idle, though, not really all that loud. Then, within twenty seconds, there was smoke coming from the #6 cylinder area. It smelled a bit like oil, but more like a burning plastic smell. There was a lot of it... maybe it was coming from the valve cover, definitely the back of the engine on the passenger side.

The scary part is, I never did find that valve spring keeper.

Any ideas what this could be?

 

[Chuck Leeper]

You ran the engine without finding the keeper??
The "tinging" noise could well be the piston beating the crap out of the keeper....
Have you thot of taking a look at the plugs??

 

[whitehot1]

This was one of my larget tasks I've done. I had to remove the intake when I thought I dropped a valve spring keeper in there, while I was tearing things apart, I figured I'd replace the timing chain. I got the whole thing back together and started it up.

There was a bit of a metallic tinging at idle, though, not really all that loud. Then, within twenty seconds, there was smoke coming from the #6 cylinder area. It smelled a bit like oil, but more like a burning plastic smell. There was a lot of it... maybe it was coming from the valve cover, definitely the back of the engine on the passenger side.

The scary part is, I never did find that valve spring keeper.

Any ideas what this could be?

What made you think you dropped a keeper in the first place?

When you looked at the valve springs was there actually a keeper missing?

Not a good idea to reassemble and run it without finding it if it's missing. It needs to be found!

 

[SHADOWII]

Assuming you installed the timing chain correctly, the smoke coming from the #6 cylinder, could be coming from a leak between the water passage at the back of the intake and getting into the cyl./intake. There should not be any metallic sound being heard.
What year vehicle do you have? Mod's?

 

[m233roller]

Sounds like that keeper has found a new home in the number 4 or 6 cylinder?? Man pull the plugs and check them closely.Take a small magnet and fish around in those cylinders and see if you can get lucky and snag it. But it sounds to me like the damage has already been done !!

 

[Dave Dunbar]

How can that much smoke come out the side of a motor? Do you have the battery cables right? Did you melt somthing? Check your starter, and the wires going to it.

 

[PigGuy]

The keeper fell when I was changing the valve springs. I dug around in the cylinders with a magnet, didn't find it, so I assumed it fell into the intake. Well, I never did find it, so I just bought a new one, and assumed it fell into a frame rail or something. I spent hours looking for that damned thing. I will pull the plugs again and dig around in there with a magnet.

This is an '86 with no internal mods. I will search the cylinders for the keeper, and then put it back together and fire it up again. Maybe I'm lucky and this is just oil burning off the exhaust, but I didn't think I ran it long enough to get things that hot.

 

[PigGuy]

Well, I pulled those back two plugs. The tips looked perfect, which is good. But, when I dug around in the #4 cylinder with a pen magnet, I was getting a tiny bit of oily metal flake on the magnet. It doesn't look really bad in there, but it doesn't look perfect either. It looks about the same as the #2 cylinder. The angles aren't right for my magnet to run along the lower end of the cylinder. I may have to get another magnet and tie it to a string.

I am sweating just thinking about the misery and financial disaster I may have caused.

I don't remember which cylinder I was working on when I lost the keeper, if it was 4 or 6, but whichever one it was (I think it was 6) couldn't possibly have the keeper in there, because the hose to pressurize the cylinder was plugging the sparkplug hole.

 

[Chuck Leeper]

"The angles aren't right for my magnet to run along the lower end of the cylinder. I may have to get another magnet and tie it to a string."
How might you prevent the magnet on the string from sticking to the first magnetic part it comes to?? IE: the cyl wall, the head.....
Either get a bore scope or pull the heads off....

 

[PigGuy]

Well, I was wrong. I started it up again, and within a couple seconds, the tinging was gone, and the smoke burned off within a few minutes. It was just oil on the manifolds, like I thought. I guess synthetic smells a lot different than my older cars burned oil...

I just have one part left over, some thin, unfinished metal L-shaped bracket with one hole. It has three sides, and I can only assume it's an oil or heat shield of some sort. Is there a pic of where this thing should attach, I'm assuming under the engine?

 

[whitehot1]

Well, I was wrong. I started it up again, and within a couple seconds, the tinging was gone, and the smoke burned off within a few minutes. It was just oil on the manifolds, like I thought. I guess synthetic smells a lot different than my older cars burned oil...

I just have one part left over, some thin, unfinished metal L-shaped bracket with one hole. It has three sides, and I can only assume it's an oil or heat shield of some sort. Is there a pic of where this thing should attach, I'm assuming under the engine?

Take a look at item #4 in this link for the heater piping bracket.

http://www.vortexbuicks-etc.com/40.htm