A tappet and a bit of smoke

[Chris560SEC]

Following a fast, cross country run, to rescue my step-sons who had broken down on their way to Gatwick (we arrived with 4 mins to spare!) my '87 560 SEC has at least one noisy tappet and has started to smoke when idling in traffic which is noticable when pulling away. The car was driven (very) hard for at least 70 - 80 miles and performed brilliantly. The car is running on 10w 40 castrol gtx magnatec semi-synthetic and fresh.

No smoke is emitted for at least the first ten miles.

Do you have any ideas what may be the cause of the problem?

The car has 129k miles and a full history inc camshafts replaced circa 100k.
I have covered about 6k miles in the past three months!

The car is now my daily driver having replaced a T5 Volvo and a Grand Voyager.

I commute about 80 miles a day and it has until now been faultless.

I look forward to your advice.

 

[Chris560SEC]

560 Sec

UPDATE: Help still needed

I am monitoring oil and water levels in case the smoke problem is the early stage of head gasket failure. Oil consumption seems stable having done appox 300 miles over the weekend. It has used approx 350 - 500ml of coolant.

I have really been checking my mirrors for exhaust smoke. It only appears when I move off from having stood still in traffic for a few minutes. The tappet noise I mentioned has quietened down and is just noticable from the right hand bank.

Your thoughts on this one would be much appreciated as well as a rough idea as to what it may cost to put right.

Could it be valves?

 

[television]

You are right in that it is a valve or valves, Valve problems show up as smoking when pulling away from lights or after standing with the engine running, With rings it smokes all of the time.

A compression check also confirms it, take all the plugs out, one bore at a time,squirt some oil into the bore, and do a test, if the cmpression stays low its a valve, if it comes up, it a ring.



Malcolm

 

[tom7035]

Perhaps a valve stem seal (or two) has given way.