white smoke after PCV system service?

tkende06010 · Post by **tkende06010** » 07 May 2011, 17:31

Hi, I have a 96 volvo 850 N/A, and it had the classic signs of a clogged pcv system. Before adressing that, I decided to use seafoam to clean out the upper end via a vaccum port on the intake. After the heavy white smoke stopped, I noticed smoke coming from the back of the motor at the flex pipe attached to the exhaust manifold, and there was still some white smoke at the tailpipe. I went ahead and replaced all the lines etc. on the pcv system, and cleaned the ports on the block. the system was clooged up, and I had the puffs out of the dipstick tube. after finishing the project, there is no smoke from the dipstick, and all seems good there. The car runs well, and idles nicely. Still smoke at rear of motor from exhaust and still smoking from tailpipe. Lots of condensation out the tailpipe, it leaves a small puddle on the ground after revving it and letting it run for a while. When I revv it, it smokes quite a bit, and when it returns to idle it clears a bit but still very noticable. The exhaust almost smells like fuel, there is no water/oil mixing, and the car does not overheat. Any suggestions? I have not driven the car since doing all of this, but it has run for about a 1/2 hour after the seafoam and pcv service.

Post by **jblackburn** » 07 May 2011, 18:27

Just take it out and drive it. The smoke/steam from the seafoam should clear up after a bit.

tkende06010 · Post by **tkende06010** » 07 May 2011, 18:51

Thanks for the reply, the car did not smoke before I did the seafoam, and I also used gunk motor flush and changed the oil ( I was hoping it would unclog the pcv system..no luck. I was not sure if I could have somehow blown the head gasket? The intake manifold was filthy, had a ton of black gunk in all of the runners and in the main body, but the opening in the head was fairly clean. I will take it out on the highway tomorrow and give it a good run, hopefully this will clear it up, thank you.

tkende06010 · Post by **tkende06010** » 09 May 2011, 06:43

I took the car up on the highway and gave it a good run, huge difference in acceleration, and much smoother. The smoke did clear up finally as well. The exhaust still stinks though, not really sweet, more like fuel? It sort of burns your nose if you smell it up close. Could it be running too rich? I thoroughly cleaned the throttle body when I did the pcv system. I am losing a bit of coolant, but my carpets seem to be absorbing it....heater core looks like next project.

Post by **jblackburn** » 09 May 2011, 19:15

See what your gas mileage is like over the next few days. As you continue to drive it, if it's running too rich and the computer takes notice of it, you will definitely set a check engine code.

Since you said it runs a lot better now, though, I wouldn't suspect that you left anything (major) loose while doing the PCV job.