1990 Honda Accord oil burning/blue smoke, is it rings or SE

Tiny
ATL111
  • MEMBER
  • 1990 HONDA ACCORD
  • 4 CYL
  • 2WD
  • MANUAL
  • 186,000 MILES
I have a recently aquired 90 accord with 186K miles and only god knows the history. When the vehicle warms up I get blue smoke from the tailpipe, its a pretty generous amount. Enough to make the guy on the motorcycle behind me hang back for a couple of feet. I know its oil, but my question is: is it the rings or valve seals? I did a compression test COLD and the results from 1-4 were: 155,155,160,155 After 5 cranks. Should I test warm, would that help me distinguish between valve seals or rings? I haven't done a leak down test, because honestly im not very good at getting the engine rotated around to where its supposed to be, would that help? The vehicle runs like a scalded dog! I mean, really well, and when I accelerate on the street I cant really tell if its smoking at all, but if I rev it in neutral, it'll smoke like a pig! I checked the plugs and I think #2 is the culprit with a wet cylinder top. I dont mind doing the work, whether its rings or seals, its nothing I haven't done before, I just want to do the least amount of work needed because my time is extremely short when it come to personal stuff unfortunatly. Thanks for any insight! -Adam

P.S. I've also done a decarb and an injection purge (with appartatus) and it doesn't really seem to be consuming too much oil, meaning I cant really tell a loss on the dipstick.
Sunday, July 20th, 2008 AT 11:26 PM

1 Reply

Tiny
MHPAUTOS
  • MECHANIC
  • 31,938 POSTS
Hi there,

If you're getting a fair amount of smoke all the time I would be thinking oil control rings, valve stem seals & guides will normally smoke on start up and clear up to a greater degree, faulty oil rings will tend to make smoke all the time.

Mark (mhpautos)
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Monday, July 21st, 2008 AT 5:26 AM

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