possable Problems with 390?

[rjewkes]

Hi guys, Got my truck back from the exhuast shop, It smokes kinda greyish smoke and until warmed up it spits a little spattering of water, the oil is black like normal but is airated(sp?) it has the tiny bubbles but isn't overly runny or milky at all.

it loses water/coolant but i have a tiny leak from the radiator core and the t-stat housing gasket so its hard to tell where it's going.

is the book right about possable water in the fuel and the oil having Condensation?


it runs really good and doesn't stutter.

any ideas?

[fordman]

a crankcase can collect condesation in it. the water leak thing like you said is in the core and water neck gasket. the foamy oil thing i can't remember the answer to. it has greyish smoke when it starts up? it isn't blue or white? greyish could mean too much fuel being burned maybe.

[saidyene]

Do you have too much oil in the engine? I have heard of the crankshaft aerating oil before if it is over filled. I might be way off though.

[DuckRyder]

The smoke does not sound like a big problem, particularly since I'm guessing it isn't real warm in webb city at the moment, little bit of water out the tail pipe cold is normal too.

Areated oil, might be overfilled or something else, how long has it been running when the oil looks this way?

[rjewkes]

This was after 10 minutes. The crankcase is actualy 1 qt low. there is a bit of the orangish foam around the filler cap, i remember an old timer telling me it meant condensation in a lightly used v8 .

On the startup smoke it does l.ook greyish white. The carb is leaking out the accel. Pump gasket. so if that allows extra unburt fuel then maybe.

[fordman]

give it a good oil change now that its been ran. that will help clean the inside of it up some. knowing the people we got that from they could haev done all kinds of wierd thing to it. oh i forgot to tell you and you may have already found it but the passenger valve cover was just kind o fhung on there. it really wasn't bolted down properly and may have been missing some bolts. for some reason all the bolts were gone outof it when we got it. i put the ones i could find back in it. but i didn't change the gasket or tighten them down very good. i also removed the oil filter to get the enign eouto fthe truck and then put it back on after i got it out. so it has some dents in it from using a big pair of pliers to remove it. i don't have a filter wrench that will fit those.

[rjewkes]

no i had no idea about the valve cover. i did change out the filter just becuase of the dents. planning on an oil change and general tuneup a next paycheck.