The smoke is still blue.(Valve Stem Seals?)

[simon]

I put in a thread about a week ago, my 1987 6.9L E350 Ford Econoline blowing alot of blue smoke. So from there I had the injection pump timing checked, it turned out good. And there was no noticable blow-by at the filler neck. But the mechanic thought that the valve stem seals might be bad and oil might be leaking in from there. He then said that it would require pulling the heads to replace them, but I thought I read in another thread that they can be accessed by removing the valve cover. Is this true? any suggestions on repair, special tools, advice?

Also, has anyone had success with an oil additive called Badedol (spelling?) Supposidly it will help those valve stem seals leak less. Is there other additive that would be better for sealing these up?

Thanks Simon

 

[tonkadoctor]

Best way to do valve stem seals is pulling the heads and either way does require special tools.

IMHO I don't think valve stem seals is the problem if it is constantly smoking blue. Blue smoke on start up that goes away is usually how they apear, and if it is smoking constantly with shot seals you need to pull the heads anyways because your valve guides are probably shot.

Blow by is usually caused by bad compression rings....The top ring of the piston, you can have blow by but no blue smoke out the exhaust.

Oil consumption with constant blue smoke is usually the oil control rings, the bottom set which is a 3 piece ring which I have seen stuck many times on engines that have sat for long periods of time. You can have bad oil control rings smoking blue but not have blow by.

Other factors can come into play like cracked or broken rings etc too.

I suggest you get compression and leakdown tests done on this engine to start with before jumping on the valve stem seal job, you will be seriously disapointed to go that far to get it running and find out that it wasn't the problem.

Now with that said, if you've never done valve stem seal before, you should avoid attempting this job without pulling the heads because if you drop a valve into a cylinder you will be pulling the heads anyways and if you don't get all 32 of those tiny keepers installed 100% correctly you will be rebuilding or replacing the engine.

 

[RLDSL]

If I remember this is a truck that had been sitting for some time.
Before resorting to surgery, go to www.auto-rx.com read up on it, get enough to do two complete treatments. Follow directions , It takes time, be patient. I've revived a number of old diesels with that stuff. Had a few that started out sucking a qt about every 30 miles that turned out fine after getting the rings cleaned out and unstuck. Try the simple things before resorting to surgery.

If, it eventually comes to valve stem seals, it can be done on the truck, it's a pain, you need a few special tools, an air compressor comes in handy to hold the valve up, if you screw up and drop one, the heads coming off. or you can make sure the hole you're working on is at tdc and carefully let the valve bottom on the piston. Easy wayI found was pop the cover to the ac evaporator for more room and use an overhead screw down type valve spring compressor on mose , then a cam over type compvesor on the hard to get to ones , with a bolt in and crank it down with a wrench. They can all be done in place that way.

But, really, try the auto RX first. I've used that stuff on dozens of vehicles, mine and customer cars and roughly 90% of the time it's taken care of the problems of either stuck rings on engines or seal leaks on engines and trannys, without surgery.At the very least, you'll have a very clean valve train to work on after runing the treatments instead of having to dig through sludge.

---------Robert