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Still Smoking

To: "Tiger's Den" <tigers@autox.team.net>,
Subject: Still Smoking
From: Sage <ssage@socal.rr.com>
Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2003 23:49:55 -0800
Thanks to eveyone who has offered tips and suggestions on my smoking Tiger.

I'm now almost positive it's a bad head gasket on the driver's side. I 
got a suggestion last night to check that the intake manifold was 
properly tightened down as this could contribute to the issue. Off went 
the carb this morning (to access all the bolts) and, sure enough, four 
of the bolts (three of them directly next to the carb.) were definitely 
a bit loose. I torqued all the bolts to 16 lbs., as specified in the 
shop manual, and started it up.

For a few minutes, I thought I got lucky and solved the problem. With 
the manifold tightened properly, the car warmed up to running temp. 
(17-180 in cooler weather), and stayed put. It did not then suddenly 
spike up to 230-240 and then cool back down to 180, as it has been doing 
the previous few mornings. There was initially no smoke at all from 
either pipe so it looked like I was home free. Also, the heater 
functioned normally all through this, blowing warm and then hot air as 
the car warmed up. No cold air from the heater as had previously been 
the case when the guage temp had temporarily shot up to 240.

At about 15 minuted from when I started the engine and watched it idling 
perfectly, the dreaded white smoke stared coming out of the left pipe 
again. Not as much as previously, but smoke for sure. The exhaust from 
the right pipe smelled "normal", while the white smoke from the left 
pipe seems like it did have a whiff of coolant smell to it.

Since I have nothing to loose, I'm going to try another bottle of Bars 
Leak radiator stop leak tommorow, in the hopes it may temporarily seal 
up the head gasket, as it's advertised to be able to do. The stuff 
definitely cured my leaking radiator a few motnhs ago, so we'll see what 
happens. If it doesn't work, I'll take it to a smog shop on Monday to 
have the exhaust and the overflow tank "sniffed" to verify it is, or 
isn't a bad head gasket.

Steve Sage





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