ALFAGTV6.COM

[John@mcr1]

Hi,
Bought a GTV6 1983 from South Africa which I imported to U.K. last year. Now I have it on the road I’ve discovered it smokes quite a bit, especially when I stop at traffic lights then set off.
It has a receipt for recent works carried out on engine, rings valve seals gasket etc before I got it. I wondered if the problem could be the rings have not seated properly as it hasn’t been used much since rebuild which was probably 2 years ago.

Anybody who can shed any light on it would be appreciated?

Regards John

[bteoh]

It sure sounds like valve stem seals are leaking.

[Zamani]

Brian’s probably right. If it’s the rings, then you should see constant blue smoke.

[John@mcr1]

Thanks for the replies fellas

[MD]

Could be all of the above and it could also be bullshit receipts.
Do a compression test on all cylinders first.

[KevinR]

John, have you sorted those valve stem seals yet ?

[John@mcr1]

Hi Kevin, the valve stem seals have been changed to the green ones as they were the black type. Unfortunately still smoking so my mechanic is looking into it at the moment. I will update you when I get some news.

[KevinR]

John did your mechanic check how the seals fitted when pressed on as I mentioned there were some guides exported to SA that were a touch smaller in diameter who knows why !! So my mate had this nightmare issue a few months back. As he was not a mechanic he assumed all was good with his new green seals until he checked again and they had all fallen off. If he takes manifolds off what does it look like on the back of the valves ? I assume all the compression tests, leakdown tests were all good on this fresh build.

[MD]

Only thing smoking on a GTV6 should be the tyres...ooh yeah,

[John@mcr1]

Hi Kevin, yes the compression test was good, 200 all cylinders. He’s looking into it now, I’ll speak to him regarding the guides. Thanks again for the info

[MD]

Hi John,
Going to avoid my usual smart arse contribution and offer something practical. Here is what you should do to help with the diagnosis.

1 Warm the car up and check the engine oil is not overfilled
2 Check the correct oil type is in the engine
3 Take it for a run into some hilly terrain.
4 Drive it hard up the incline and watch for blue smoke. If you get lots of blue smoke while the engine is under hard load, it is a problem with the rings.
5 When you go down the incline give the engine some hard engine braking to do and then get back onto full throttle using a few on-off cycles. If you don't get smoke while the engine is on throttle but lots of smoke off the throttle , you have valve stem/guides/seals issues. This is because the cylinders are sucking in the oil from the camshaft lubrication area of the head.

In summary: Uphill smoke=rings. Downhill smoke = valve guide area issues.

Mate, we cannot have a smoking Alfa. Leave that to Mitsubishi