Smokey 205

One of my 205xs' has started smoking horrendously (burning oil),
wondering if the following points to one thing in particular causing
it:

Smoke under hard acceleration at any speed, but especially bad at low
revs/pulling away, and when the engine is hot;
Engine has lost some of its 'oomph' when the throttle is wide open;
I did a compression test and got readings on all cylinders of about
175psi (12 bar) building up during 4-5 compression strokes.

I originally thought it was the valve stem seals because it only
smoked when you first started it when it had been standing overnight,
but since its started doing it all the time I'm not so sure and am
starting to suspect worn piston rings.
Any thoughts gladly recieved!

Cheers
Andy

 

Is it blue smoke that is coming out of the exhaust?

Those compression figures seem fine especially as it sounds like they are
consistent across the cylinders.

Have you tried taking further compression readings after pouring a teaspoon
of oil down each bore? If the pressure increases then this could indicate
worn or gummed rings, maybe worn bores. Some people have suggested to me
before that you can pour a reasonable quantity of Redex down each bore and
soak overnight to help unstick the rings, although I've never had any
success with this. This might be worth a try if your compression readings do
increase with the above test.

Chris

 

Cheers chris, I'll have a look and see if the oil trick makes a
difference to the readings.

It is blue smoke and the oil level had dropped considerably from when I
changed the oil a month or so ago, the coolant hasn't changed so I'm
discounting it being steam.

Cheers
Andy

 

If you are smoking and burning oil, but your bores seem O.K., you may have a
blocked breather which is causing high crank case pressure which is blowing
oil up through the bores.

Had this problem on a Volvo which has an oil breather into the air cleaner
box.
It started blowing oily smoke as if the engine or turbo had gone.
Cleaning the clogged filter at the end of the oil breather magically put all
back to normal

HTH
Dave R