Vrodman

Hey Guys,
I have occasional mild smoke coming out of left front fender well. It smells like burning oil. It seems to be most obvious if I let the car idle in place in the morning for any length of time. After I drive it a bit, it seems to go away. I looked as close as I could under the hood, but cannot see where the smoke originates from. I am guessing a valve cover. But I also don't see any oil on my garage floor. Car has about 64k miles now so I suppose it could be a valve cover gasket. My old 2000 E55 seemed to leak at the valve covers like crazy.

Anyway, any of you guys experience something like this? Suggestions on what else it might be other than a valve cover?

Thanks

jnolan

Celicasaur

Oil leaking from the valve cover and burning off on the exhaust manifold, turning into smoke - gasket needs to be replaced.

It's a PITA to tighten the lower bolts by the firewall....I replaced my gasket, but wasn't able to tighten the bolt as well as I should have on mine now I just don't care about it anymore.

Vrodman

Yeah, walks like a duck, sounds like a duck, is a duck! Meaning my suspicion that it is the valve cover gasket was correct. Question though: do you know if oil pools up at the top of the head near the gasket when car is shutoff and just sitting? Because an interesting thing happened that points to this. When I recently replaced my passenger side Xenon bulb I used my floor jack to lift the passenger side of the car. It was later that afternoon that I first saw the smoke problem. And it was by far the worst episode. So I am thinking I must have a marginal seal at the cover gasket that when the engine is tipped in that direction, any pooled oil near the defective section of the seal would be able to spill out more so that normal level operation. It has never been as bad as that one afternoon after tipping the car on the jack. I suppose I could test my theory and jack it up again. But I think I will pass. lol I will just have the steeler checkout the valve cover at my next service which just became due.

Celicasaur

Haha....fun times

From my personal experience of it, it's a constant slow drip under pressure, ie when the engine is running. There is probably some residual oil that leaks down too after the engine has been turned on, but I wouldn't be able to vouch for it. Mine isn't leaking at the top of the V....i'm not sure how it would leak from there due to the angle, but you never know I guess.

It's not a great design tbh. Every valve cover I've encountered has a recess on the two mating surfaces (the head and the valve cover) for the rubber seal to sit snug into. But on this engine, the head surface is smooth/flat, which means the rubber is entirely dependant on the bolts being torqued up in sequence and to the required torque....which is fine. Except I find access to the bolts in the bottom corner very hard to get to and as a result, I have failed twice at stopping the leak. Perhaps you'll have a better way of doing it and share it with me