Thread: Oil Pressure
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Old 04-09-2002, 11:15 AM
JimSmith JimSmith is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Woolwich, Maine
Posts: 3,598
Stapp,

It is not unusual for the cap seal to get old and inflexible, and start to leak. The cap is constantly splashed with oil from the camshafts and while it is not under a lot of pressure, if the seal is not working the oil leaks out onto the valve cover.

The smoke at start up can be an indication that the valve seals are getting worn. Is this smoke at start up something that happened once after a long rest or period of not being used and has gone away, or is it a symptom of every cold start? If it happened once after a long period of not being used, and no longer occurs, I would not worry about it.

One way to check if there is a problem with blow by is to take the oil fill cap off while the engine is running and look at how much smoke and gasses come out. If there is a significant volume of gas escaping, or if getting the cap back on makes enough resistance so you have to account for it and force the cap back on, you might want to have a compression check done. If there is no noticeable emission of gasses you have nothing to worry about.

Hope this helps, Jim
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