Random clouds of smoke from my 99 NL exhaust!

[Shayne86]

Hi guys.

Lately my pajero has been spewing clouds of white smoke from the exhaust at seemingly random times and only for a minute at the most! Has happened a few times since i bought it and its making me very nervous as it seems to go through alot of oil also.

It is a 99 exceed, auto, 3.5L petrol with 320,000Km's on the clock. It was well looked after and serviced at the proper intervals right upto 200,000km's (this is as far as the log book goes I think). I had it serviced not long after i bought it as the previous owner was not sure if the timing belt was done at 300k so instead of risking it I had it replaced along with the leaking head gasket while they were there at 320,000km's.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this??? I would realy appreciate it. Would be a little silly if it was something simple and i took it for a complete rebuild or vice versa, wouldnt want to have it die as it is a great car and appart from this has no issues.

Any advice or tips on what this may be caused buy would be bloody great.

Cheers, Shayne

[Stevie-Ray]

Sounds like valve-stem seals, which aren't too serious a problem. Mainly a bit of labour involved in getting to them.

Steve

[dbomba]

Are you sure it is white smoke??
Excessive white smoke usually caused from water/coolant entering the cylinder. Does it also use water/coolant.

Blueish coloured smoke is usually from oil being burnt. You mentioned that you are using a lot of oil.

Agree with Stevie-Ray about the possibility of being the valve stem seals.

One thing you could try is to warm the engine up, then let it idle for a few minutes then give it a rev and see what color it is. (often hard to tell when you are driving)
Being a NL 3.5 sohc, I dont think that the valve stem seals can be replaced as easily as the earlier models, like the 3.0 litre and 3.5 dohc. Maybe someone could confirm this.
Regards
Daryl

[Shayne86]

Thanks guys! yeah ive only seen it in the rear view mirror when driving along so most likely is a bluey colour more than white.

Thanks guys! do appreciate it

[Shayne86]

Does it also use water/coolant.

Nah mate the water level has never been an issue

[Quinno]

To check valve stem seals get someone to drive behind you as your are going downhill and then take your foot off the accelerator. If they are worn the trailing driver will see puffs of bluish smoke on deceleration.

[liam]

you can also see it when you first start up and not on a cold morning as you would not be sure which it is i had mine do that for a while get to work at end of day start car and can see a cloud of smoke coming from the back and it was on the white side more than blue and it was my valve stem seals
if it is blue type of colour then i would be looking at the oil ring on the piston being worn as this lets more oil to get past than the valve stem seals unless
they are totally knackered then you would have smoke all the time
as to do the job it takes a while as is a lot to take off and then to do the job
takes a while as well

[UndeadHomer]

x3 for the valve stem seals

get someone to stand behind the car after idling and when you accelerate (neutral is fine) ask him/her to take a sniff. if it smells a bit sweetish than it is burnt oil, if he cannot smell anything (apart from exhaust gases) it is water. however i would bet on burnt oil !

common paj problem !