Thread: Valve seals, guides, head gaskets or rings?

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It's me again asking some more questions OK same vehicle, 88 k5 with the TBI 350. I have some questions regarding a smoke problem, OK it doesn't smoke to bad just on start up and if I'm sitting at a light it will puff out a cloud of white smoke out of the passenger side tail pipe, now I have done a little research and came across a few possibilities, one being head gaskets but it doesn't over heat and haven't had to add any antifreeze and another are valve seals or guides which are notorious for these engines and last could be rings but haven't really notice any oil loss although I don't really check it as often, so should just go ahead and do head gasket and valve seal and see if that helps also before I decided to take apart the top end are there some tests I can do to know for sure what the problem could be?

You could do valve seals first.

Saves replacing head gaskets.

A good method for keeping valves in place while you change the seals:

Get the cylinder on compression stroke, then back it up some.

Feed cotton rope down the spark plug hole.

Turn the crank, squish the rope into the valves.

Now you can release the keepers, remove the spring and replace the seal.

After it's back together, back off the crank, and pull the rope out.

Then, do next cylinder in firing order.

Awesome! Grandma said the same thing when I said I'll probably have to change them! just out of curiosity. What would happen if the valve dropped? Could it be retrieved with a magnet? I was able to pull a pushrod up with a retracting magnet after I missed the hole and dropped it into the depts of the engine.. Never messed with the valve train but a pretty decent mechanic ..so this will definitely be a good learning experience,

For the valve to drop completely into the cylinder would require the piston to be down a distance greater than the length of the valve.

Mostly, pinning the valves in place with the rope makes it easy to put the springs back on.

If you have the proper spring compressor, it will be a snap.

Read tech's guideline for setting the valve lash. You can probably get it done five minutes a valve, after you get practice on the first few.

OK had a little time to mess with it today, pulled the plugs on the passenger side to see if any are fouled and all good except the last one number 8 the plug had what looks like some kind of loose liquid/Copper on it not sure what to call which I'm leaning towards headgasket sealer? And could possibly be what's causing the smoke, checked oil and it hasn't moved down a bit but the antifreeze looked a little low but could also be because of some of it still in the block