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TR4/4A oil smoke

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N

nbailey

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I recently had my 4A in to have some wheel work done with a local mechanic, and had him adjust the
valves while it was there. Since I got it back it smokes on start, like the valve guides are bad. Coincidence , or could valves out of adjustment cause this? My car has a sport cam and my mech said he adjusted intake valves to .010 and exhaust to .012 to compensate for cam lift. The head has approx 10000 miles since rebuild. Am I looking at another valve job or just adjustment? Thanks for any advice.
 
Geo Hahn said:
Coincidence I think. .010 & .012 are where I set mine with a stock cam.

Any chance you overfilled the carb dampers?
Click to expand...

I just checked dampers, and they were high (1/2" when resistance felt) I just had carbs rebuilt and had'nt checked. Does excess oil spill into vacuum ports in domes? I'll test drive tomorrow and hope this is the problem.Thanks
 
Some "sport" cams require more clearance than others. Although I doubt it has anything to do with the smoke, you might want to find the right specs for the cam you have, and use those.

Any excess oil does spill out into the domes, and can take some time to work its way through the engine. That sounds likely to me.
 
As a follow up, I believe I have found my problem. I decided to check the PCV valve, and found quite a bit of oil in it. I had cleaned it recently, and had replaced the diaphragm with one from Moss. The new one was very thin and more flexible than the one I had replaced. I put the old one back in, and also put a one inch section of 5/16" fuel line into the PCV hose. I figured I could slow the ventilation a bit. So far no smoke on start.
 
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