Hello, I just bought a 1989 SHO 5sp today for $1300, Drove it home an hour and a half drive (cruising 70MPH) temp was about a 1/4 the whole way. Then once i got into town and parked i could see white smoke comming from the engine, and the temp guage was at half+-, turned the engine off, let it sit a while then put some oil in, went to put in radiator fluid but it was full. the car has 225k on it and im guessing its in need of a head gasket? havnt checked it out too much since i got home around 1 AM. any suggestions on what i should check?
Engine smoking
- Thread starter sylas
- Start date
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most of these cars have significant oil leaks due to lack of proper maintenance, and one of the places they like to leak is the front seal / cam seal / valve cover seal areas, which drip oil onto the cats, so there is a good chance that is the issue.
head gasket issues are rare and typically result in steam, not white smoke.
head gasket issues are rare and typically result in steam, not white smoke.
NOTAURIUS
SHO Member
You may want to check to see if the electric fan is turning on as well.
kevinspann
Don't take my advice.
Smoking under the hood or out of the exhaust?
sperold
Last to Know
You can often tell by the smell, antifreeze has a sweet, sickening smell; while oil smells like oil. If it is straight water in the cooling system, you don't have much smell at all.
You don't need a head gasket.
There are a lot of steel tubes with flex hoses at their ends which take coolant around the engine. The flex parts sometimes fail, but not in a spectacular manner. If you move them manually, sometimes you will hear or see the leak. There is also the heated throttle body in your intake flex that develops leaks.
Look for oil tracks or "little rivers" near your cam sensor, and that back valve cover has a history of leaks as it is hard to install.
Look on the top of your catalytic converters to see if they are oil stained.
The cooling fan is suspect, and you can test it when you do the Key On Engine Off test (KOEO) with a code reader. Turning the fan on is the first part of the test when the code reader is going through its routine.
Good luck.
You don't need a head gasket.
There are a lot of steel tubes with flex hoses at their ends which take coolant around the engine. The flex parts sometimes fail, but not in a spectacular manner. If you move them manually, sometimes you will hear or see the leak. There is also the heated throttle body in your intake flex that develops leaks.
Look for oil tracks or "little rivers" near your cam sensor, and that back valve cover has a history of leaks as it is hard to install.
Look on the top of your catalytic converters to see if they are oil stained.
The cooling fan is suspect, and you can test it when you do the Key On Engine Off test (KOEO) with a code reader. Turning the fan on is the first part of the test when the code reader is going through its routine.
Good luck.
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