History Your regular car that had terrible blow by / humor

I had a 57 Pontiac when I got home from the army with a wheezy 347. Exhaust didn't smoke but the blow-by was horrendous! I couldn't keep oil in it so I also ran 90 weight gear oil. Big mistake! The 90 WT fumes found all the teeny holes in the firewall, sending that smell into the car....argh! That winter a buddy totaled his 59 Pontiac and I bought his low mile 389 engine/stick setup. Took months of time and many "blue trees" before the smell went away.

 

My first car was a Corvair.

'nuff said...

 

Hello,

A Corvair that smokes? What is this world coming to? Actually, my wife's Corvair used oil, but did not smoke. There was some minor smoke in the engine compartment, but the oil had a nice place to rest after leaving the motor. Following the Corvair was another topic, but did not show smoke coming out of the rear.

Ha, another satisfied 62 Corvair customer. When my wife bought her 1962 Corvair, it was pristine and had low miles. It was her dream to be able to drive independently, as long as a car started every time. She drove it to her college days after high school, her late night job, and as many places as she could go to feel the freedom of independence. We all felt like that with our first car to go endless places for endless fun.

But, over the years, the Corvair had some minor problems, but were usually fixed. So, upon becoming a college student with little money to spend on a full rebuild, she just kept driving it. One great thing about the Corvair was that it started every time and she never had to call a tow truck to get it started. By the time we met in our senior year of college, her Corvair was shiny and within two weeks, the rear bumper was slick with a layer of dirt and oil. It did not matter how many times I kept it clean, within two weeks, it was the shiniest bumper, but usually covered with dirt and oil.

It was the shiniest bumper in all of So Cal, once I wiped it clean. But, asking several local mechanics and our expert in all things mechanical up in Los Angeles, they were all stumped as to the leaks. The solution was to rebuild the whole motor and that should stop any leak. There was no time to keep the Corvair out of action for a week or so. The responsibility of getting to her job without asking her mom or dad for a ride was all hers and she was not going to ask.

Jnaki

Well, after two years of being together through college and just hanging around all over So Cal, we got married and the 62 Corvair was now my responsibility. After countless days at her job with a slight smoky aroma floating around, she had enough. It was fix it, get a new car or just junk it in the local OC junkyard. We gave the Corvair to her uncle as he was going through a rough time and needed transportation. He knew what he was getting after our information. He was just grateful for a car he could afford... a promissory note for $150.

My wife was happy, her new car had our first A/C and now, her clothes and hair did not have that 1962 Corvair odor floating anywhere she walked or sat. That Corvair lasted several more years, as we were told by her parents.

Smoky driver? You better believe it...

 

I had a '65 Chevy C30 panel truck that was 3 quarts to the beach and back, 20 miles. Someone was next to me at a light, in an MG. I goosed the gas and filled their car up with oil smoke, they had to back up to escape it.

I used Valvoline straight #60 blower oil in it... no help. Alemite CD2 was usually good.. not in this case. I started using waste oil from work out through a kitchen strainer. I got the truck and there was a beach towel folded up between the hood and cowl... WTF? So I threw it away. The next time I was out in the rain I realized why it was there.

I was swapping a 283 into it and decided to blow up the 6, which was a Pontiac 215, very similar to the Chevy 230. Drained the oil and took the filter off... drove it around the 'hood for a goof 20 minutes. It didn't even make noises, gave up and did the swap.

 

'66 Falcon 4 dr. sedan 200 or 170 6 cyl. ...belched blue smoke wherever it went...obvious culprit...no aircleaner it would circle around and enter the cabin through all the rust holes soon you couldn't see inside or outside the car...obvious repair? a roll of that metal muffler tape and a triple x tall can as a tailpipe extension, didn't bother me at all after that!

 

Dad had a 64 Prem. Beautiful country car, had been stored and driven little for many years. It was his "project car" for when he retired. I got my licence, and was allowed to drive it. Drove it hard enough to scrape the front mudflaps on corners. After two weeks of "spirited" driving, I blew out enough of the rings that the poor thing had no compression, let alone enough to blow smoke. Flat towed it home.

When he got round to rebuilding it (20 years later), I supplied a replacement 186 as penance. The original 179 is probably supposed to go back in it, but not so sure I'll see the 186 again. Suspect I'm still not allowed to drive the car

Could be worse... Number 1 Son borrowed my 60 FB not too long ago. Brought it home with enough of a headgasket leak that it was eating water quicker than a steam loco.

Perhaps it's hereditary

Cheers,
Harv

 

I had a self induced smoke screen car.,well back in 1963 I had a 51 Chevy winter car I drove while my 57 was stored and my buddy and I had a 1/8 ''tube plumbed into the intake and run inside the car near the seat, We would pull into the local fast food hangout where we all met at night and as soon as we pulled in off the street we stuck the end that was in the car into a quart of old used oil. By the time we drove around the restaurant there was so much smoke you couldn't see the building or anything. One morning I couldn't get the car to turn over, the engine had sucked in so much oil through the rings the oil pan was full.

 

Off topic so I won't mention the year but my Uncle had a Dodge p-up with either a 318 or 360 (I think 360). He was driving it, there was a big BOOM and it shut off. It fired right back up and he continued to drive it but started looking for another vehicle. He ended up giving the truck to me so I grabbed my tow bar and hauled it home. Having had a 340 Duster, I know what the valve covers are supposed to look like the ones on his truck were completely ballooned. Obviously their was so much leakage past the rings that the crankcase filled with gas vapor then lit off. Wish I had kept those covers for a conversation starter

 

he didn't just BLOW BY ...
a tractor trailer tried to run over my merc and I...

 

Around 1960 one of my friends had a ‘50 Chevrolet. Another friend figured out that if you pulled the vacuum line off the wiper motor and stuck it in a container of kerosene you could make a tremendous cloud of smoke out the tailpipe. We had a lot of fun in “one traffic light” Orange, Massachusetts filling the whole town center with smoke. We had to wait to time our trips to be sure we had a green light.

 

I bought a ‘73 Lemans ( lemons?) back in the ‘80s from a friend for $75. I know the car is a little of topic because of its youthful age, but humor me. It was a one owner car when he got it a couple of months earlier, little old lady. Apparently the valve guide seals were gone. It smoked horribly at stop signs, red lights, and parking lots! As a young man just recently out on his own I had little money or knowledge to repair the vehicle. Soon after acquiring the car I received a traffic ticket for the smoking ordinance on vehicles. Unfortunately the car didn’t last much longer, it threw a rod, but it did coast into the driveway!

 

Drove a chevy truck with a very worn out, smokey 250 in it, that I transplanted from a 67 camaro. Would fly down the highway, 75 mph coming home late at night with the Craig stereo (with a power booster/equalizer and 2 Jensen 6x9's down) cranked. Take my exit, turn the radio down, engine clattering like crazy. Get up the next morning, pour 4 quarts of oil in it, and it would still be a 1/2 quart low. Never could blow that engine up. That was almost 40 years ago, still have the same rebuilt engine in the same truck.

 

Finally was able to buy my ex-father-in-law's '65 F-100 w/ 352 back in the '80s. He purchased it new, drove it 100 miles daily back and forth to work for 15 years and parked it. Had a re-ring on the standard pistons and re-painted. Drove it for a year and finally had to park it. Blue smoke would boil out of the vent tube at red lights so bad, you couldn't see the light change to take off

Joe

 

Just found this thread. This is one of the best threads ever. Don't think I've ever laughed this hard at a single thread on the HAMB before. Guess the silver spoon kids are keeping quiet, the rest of us drove shitheaps when we were young!

 

Smoke?
Blow-by is one thing.
But you've never seen a car lay down such a thick huge smokescreen as when my 1964 289 Comet Caliente started burning transmission fluid. Holy moly... lucky I was out in the country. Could've covered a small town with all the white smoke.

Ruining dates?
It wasn't due to blow-by.
One broken rear leaf spring. Car was sitting on a kitty corner angle. Had just picked up my date from her house. Only a couple streets away, and we got pulled over for the odd stance. She walked home.
Well.............. crap.
LOL

 

I had an old 1948 CJ2A that I bought for $400. This was probably in the late 80's, early 90's. We lived on the family ranch, 154 acres. Lots of trees and creeks and even a couple of good hills to climb with it. I found an old school bus seat and bolted it down in the back. The thing was perfect for Friday and Saturday nights with 4 or 5 buddies and a BIG cooler of cold beer, riding through the woods and creeks, the thing didn't go fast enough to get anyone hurt, in spite of the alcohol involved. When I went to look at it before buying it, the engine in it didn't have a head on it, everything stripped off of it, was basically just a block with the pistons rusted into it, but the guy said he had a good running engine "that smoked a little"......I bought the thing, dragged it home, and then in a couple of days went to the guy's house (the jeep was at his ranch in East Texas) in Garland Tx and loaded the engine up, took it home and dropped it in the old Willys. Got it fired up and yeah, it smoked "a little". I read earlier where someone said, "fill it with oil and check the gas!". That was this thing. I would buy the gallon jugs of "reconditioned oil" and on a good night we would go through a couple of those gallon jugs. We didn't need mosquito repellant, just drive the old Willys around in the woods for a few minutes and it was like a horror movie, fog everywhere! Fun times!

 

Damnit Eddie! I'm guessing you didnt bother getting the brown stains out of the drivers seat before sending it to the junkyard.....

 

I had a '37 Chevy sedan with a 265" sbc I put in it. Had lots of blow by. When you were sitting
at a light it would start surrounding the car like some kind of alien swamp fog monster. I decided
to braze a small tube into the draft tube on the back of the motor, hook it up to a vacuum source
and see what happened. Completely worked. My early version of a PCV system, I guess. Never
did use a pcv valve and luckily, never had a backfire. This was in 1963 before anyone thought of
smog systems. Pretty funny looking back on it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

 

I answered an ad for a couple '47 Indians, one together and a basket. The together one is a bobber, kinda cool setup but had been dropped on the right side, tank whacked. Has one of those enormous yellow Accel coils on it, and a small Hitachi alternator with the fan open right under the seat- just funky. Also has a huge S&S Super B carb. So he says the engine is shot and won't start, so the deal was decent, drug them home. The inside of the mufflers was sooty and wet with oil, but had lots of compression. I looked into right tank, which is the one that's half gas and half oil, and the bulkhead was crumpled and the oil tank almost empty, and both gas petcocks are open. Plugs real oily. I popped the heads off (flathead) and cylinders looked good, but loaded with oil. I cleaned the plugs up, closed the right petcock, put oil in it's tank and some gas in the left, and gave it hell. The spark retard lever is in one of the boxes, so at full advance, had to kick it hard or get bit- lots of compression. Fourth kick it started- and instantly filled the whole shop with smoke. I had a box fan going behind it in case it started, and a huge column of smoke going out the big double doors. Had to step outside, and couldn't see the bike from outside.. A nice lady who was jogging by asked if I wanted her to call the fire dept lol... Smoke gradually started to clear up, ran in and rapped it a couple times, and got big clouds from all the oil in the pipes. Oil was returning to the tank as it should, and the fan was keeping it cool, so let it run at about 2K for a while, pipes got chalky and smoke cleared up. Shut it off, restarted on the first kick and runs great- pretty good throttle response with that Super B! Turned out to be a very good deal on a "smoker"

 

I bought a '50 Ford coupe for $60 (1963) and it ran well enough to fix it up a little...Reversed wheels, Buick outers, and oversize rear tires...dual exhaust, seat covers, and a thorough detail.
One day it seemed to run warm, so I topped off the radiator with anti freeze...drove it to San Jose, (6 miles) and on a busy street got pulled over for "excessive smoke".
Calif was just getting into the dreaded 'smog craze', so I got a ticket for "excessive smoke".
Tore the engine down, there was a wrist pin thru a cylinder wall. Anti freeze was burning with 81 octane gas!
Went to court, judge was ready to fine me...I asked if I could explain.
I told the judge that it was STEAM, not 'smoke'. ...And it would be good if the policeman could learn the difference.
The judge chuckled, and dismissed the charge in the interest of Justice!

 

Had a '56 F-100 with a tired 394 in it; didn't really smoke too bad; but even non foulers (remember them) could keep all the plugs firing. Then a friend found a '56 Olds with a later J-2 in it; we split the car; he got the body for the front clip and I got the engine. Dropped the 371 in the pick-up and found it wasn't much healthier than the 394; had to stuff a rag down the breather tube to keep the fumes manageable. But the 3x2's ran strong and the hydro shifted crisp; quick off the line too. Trouble was remembering to pull the rag out when adding oil; punched the spout in the can, tipped it into the tube and watched it overflow a few times. Good old days.

 

Guy I worked with in the early 70's picked up a '63 1/2 Galaxie with a 390. Smoked a bit and was sluggish.
A co-worker suggested that he go out on a back road and trickle water into the carburetor while keeping the rev's up.
De-carbonize it, the fella said.
We go out and he sets the idle up to about 1500 and starts trickling the water in but that was taking too long so he starts dumping in the water and racing the engine up to 3-4,000. About halfway through the second bottle the smoke changed from white to blue and it was billowing. Drove back to his farm and the engine was clattering and huge clouds of smoke followed the car by the time we made the 4 mile trek. A different engine was installed shortly thereafter.

 

1969 Chevelle in Minneapolis, Mn. Rusty as hell, ran OK I guess. Bought it for $350, put $1100 in it over a two-year period, sold it to a junk yard for $50. I call the difference in prices a tuition.

John

 

as a struggling apprentice on very few $ the daily became tired, STP didn't work, so I tried diff oil 80-90 (cause there was some lying around), was better then went for some 80-140, that did it. Much quieter no obvious smoke but did it stink..... kept getting me to work till I could save up for a second hand engine.

 

This is the story of my life.

 

As a young teen I had a 64 Corvair Monza, and was grateful to have a local independent station selling glass jarred bulk motor oil. At a dime a quart it was still putting a bite on my low cash flow with the already 25 cent a gallon cost of gas. She leaked it and burnt it, but still looked good with its black paint and lipstick red interior. I found it was best to drive this smoke bomb at night or only on very windy daytime conditions. In 64 I sold it for $150 and kept the moons and shrunken head.

 

Got a kick out of the ruined dates the oil burning caused. Anybody here ever leave their dates as the 'deposit' on the gas can at your friendly service station? Did it three times myself. Kept two of those cans. The one I did return got me my first, future ex-wife. Looking back, it would've been cheaper to keep the can...

 

Spit my coffee on this one!! We have a dude exactly like that here.. He's a player, gangster fo real, murder was the case that they gave him... LOL...

 

Been There, Done That, First wife, a very pricey learning experience(Great Kids. the positive) Second wife, Great/Near Perfect, I'm a Lucky man. Never left a date or family member, can remember leaving a spare tire for a gas can deposit, also I remember when we paid cash for gas, filled up, forgot wallet, had to leave my trunk toolbox, lots of tools, they hoped I would not come back I'm sure. Fast forward 30 years or so, out of state first gas stop, again no wallet, lucky was with group and everyone chipped in loaned me cash for the weekend. there's a pattern here, years ago when I traveled for racing I had $500 in traveler checks in tow vehicle for misc events, tickets, etc. and to be sure I could get back home, Never counted on making money for travel home at race track. LOL

 

Interesting thread, I don't have any stories on bad engine blow-by, never bought anything that bad and the few engines I purchased at our local speed shop (junkyard) were good. Back in the day had a few that marked their territory, rear main, replaced rear main bearing and seal in car, PIA, seem to work, but never kept very long to see how that lasted, bought/sold/traded a fair amount of cars back then, a part time enterprise for me. Side Note, Not a silver spoon kid, worked, cut grass, shoveled snow, paper route, I had saved my money so I could buy decent junk and the best advice from my parents "There are No Excuses, Make it Happen"