mhayes2344

iTrader: (3)

For the last 6 months or so my car has been smoking. It's a 96 and has ~103k miles on it... the smoking has gradually gotten worse. I would love to wait until I can afford to do a complete rebuild and stroke it but the money simply isn't there at the moment and this is my DD as a college student. Now it's to the point where it's a little embarrassing to drive honestly. I replaced the valve seals in July of this year..and I know what smoking from bad valve seals looks like - the current problem doesn't seem to be valve seals IMO.

My question is..considering piston rings...can the oil ring(s) go bad before the compression rings? The reason I ask is...I have great oil pressure...but the car burns oil and smokes like crazy after it's warm.

The cold idle oil pressure is at about 3/4 of the gauge. I can't remember roughly what PSI that is...hot idle is anywhere from 1/3-1/2 of the gauge...and driving is a constant 2/3 of the gauge even hot.

Also another question...say I were to replace just the oil rings. Could I get away with just removing the oil pan and pulling the pistons/rods that way?

BTW I am going to do a compression test tomorrow...I will post back with the results!

Any ideas? Mods are in sig although they shouldn't play any part in this problem...

Thanks in advance guys!

fleetmgr

Yes they can. Oil pressure and smoke aren't related to each other.

Based on this, oil pressure sounds good.

Assuming there's enough room under the car, you can do it this way. The hard part is getting them back in again. You'll have to pull the crank too, or else theres not enough room to get the pistons out.

You've got your work cut out for you! Good luck.