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1st start after rebuild, smoking exhaust manifold?

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MTribe

MTribe

Jedi Hopeful
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Just fired the engine up after a full rebuild, cam, etc for the first time. What sweet music!!

However, after 30 seconds of running, the exhaust manifold starts to smoke quite a bit.

Is this normal? I did paint it with high temp paint. Maybe residual stuff is just burning off? The whole manifold appears to be smoking, not any one point.

One thought was maybe the cooling water is not circulating and things are getting too hot--there's no priming that needs to be done, right? Just fill radiator and top off after running?

Thanks for any ideas!
 
MTribe,

Well, yes and no. And that depends on which question, so let's start from the beginning.

You should have the block and radiator filled with coolant because a closed thermostat will not allow coolant to enter the engine until it gets hot and opens. And air pockets can be trapped inside, so running for a while with the heater valve wide open will insure that circulation will take place for the entire system. After running your 20 minute cam break in period, you should shut down and let it cool down enough to remove the cap and refill any coolant needed. After that, you should be fine.

As far as the manifold goes, it's probably the paint burning a bit. Did you sandblast and then prime/paint?
 
Hey Paul, thanks for the quick response... it's a long story, but I'm moving and basically have to get the car done today or pay to have it shipped! And of course swallowing my pride to not have gotten it done before the move!

OK--I will open the heater valve.

I've been afraid to run it longer than 30 seconds or so, but will have the fire extinguisher ready and see if the burn off subsides.

My plan is to run about 2k rpm for 20 min. Does that match your cam break-in procedure?

Tracking down an oil drip emanating somewhere near the spin-on adapter now...
 
Fix the oil drip before running the 20 minute break in, then change oil and filter together before running again.
 
Sometimes, in fact more often than you'd think, there may have been an old sealing gasket left in the channel for the oil filter. Sometimes it is so hard and brittle that it feels like metal and mistaken for same. If that is the case oil will leak with the addition of a second O-ring. The leak will manifest itself between the engine block and the adaptor housing. If the oil is coming from the adaptor mounting bolt, it may be a less than perfect machining process on the adaptor.
I've read that some of the older adaptors had that problem.
 
Poolboy--thanks, any idea where to get a new gasket for the spin-on adapter? I looked at TRF and didn't see one, although I didn't call to ask, either...
 
AA good parts place can make one the size you need; its not the best but if you gotta have one. Mine has lasted 30 years :laugh:
 
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