possible valve guide trouble - please check me
Turbo Mini Forums

I've been having blue oil smoking problems at idle. For quite some time I was convinced it was down to over-oiling the turbo. However I've now established very firm control over turbo oil both in and out, and the smoke is still there.

I was tightening up plug gap a few days ago and found #4 oiled. Today I ran a compression test and found the following:

#1 150 #2 155 #3 160 #4 150

All good, tight grouping.

Since the smoke also appears at idle and never under acceleration, I'm thinking it is oil being sucked past the valve guide.

I removed the rocker cover and found #4 intake had wiggle, as did #2 and #1. How much wiggle, if any, if acceptable? Given that valve guide clearances are supposed to be only a few thousandths, I'm thinking there should be no visible wiggle.

So, my diagnosis is bad valve guide (possibly plural). What do you all think?

1275 with Back Door Turbo

easy way to tell is to jack front of the car up if the smoke stops then guides, also then try jacking rear up and see if it gets worse.

always looking for them bigger bunches of bannanas

plus if you can wiggle valves with the springs on then yes the are goosed

always looking for them bigger bunches of bannanas

Or pour half a litre of thin grade engine oil into the rocker cover with engine running and see what happens. If a load of smoke comes out then suspect guides.

As hoggy says - any wiggle is no good.
I had guides go bad almost overnight it seemed - a huge amount of slop that made my engine smoke like a goodun.
Get the head off, find a shop with a serdi, and leave it with them. :)

Thanks for the replies.

I have a new-old-stock 1316 casting that I'm thinking of having built up with 1.4 intake valves, 1.15 exhaust, good valve springs, and some porting. Right now I have single springs. 1.5 ratio rockers, but no roller tips - would keep those.

On the Mini Mania board, some folks have said seals will sort the smoking problem. There are seals on the intakes already. They are the umbrella type I believe. Not sure if fitting positive seals would work or not.

One more thing: There is oil in the intake pipe just above the carb. Seems like a bad sign, but I would think if the rings were bad that would have shown up on the compression test and/or be smoking under load. Any thoughts there?

1275 with Back Door Turbo