White smoke out of right cylinder, bad guides/seals??

rowdyrandy

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A quick lead up then on to the problem -
Bike is a 75' stock except for filters and exhaust-
Just moved out to Colorado (Denver) from Pa and have finally gotten the space/time to get the bike up and going. A quick and crappy ride around the block confirmed I would have to rejet but since i had planned to put on some uni's and a mac 2 into 1, I thought they might get me closer before i started ordering anything. The mac mechanical baffle sounded terrible so I made my own and adjusted the cam chain, valves, point gap and timing.. Started the bike up in the garage last night and it ran surprisingly pretty well, although I noticed a little bit of smoke coming out the muffler. Took the right plug out to have a look and white smoke just came bellowing out the hole. Readjusted the valves this morning and started it again.. Ran a bit better but the smoke is still there, and only in the right. After reading a few other threads here I'm wondering if its a bad valve guide or seal? When I got the headpipes off and looked inside it appears that some oil might be seeping down the valve stem on the right where as the left looks clean....could this be the culprit? I apologize in advance for the quality of the pictures, hopefully their enough to get the point across. The first is the right side and the second is the left. Anybody had a similar experience?
 

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Yes, it could be guides and/or guide seals. From the look of all the crust built up on those valves, I'd say a teardown and good cleaning is in order. These are old bikes and most need the top ends gone through by now. The cam chain guides are falling apart, the gaskets are leaking, and the valve guide seals are hard as rocks, lol.
 
good point, i think this guys gonna have to get pulled. which means I'll probably be posting here a lot more
 
Oil seeping into the exhaust valve seldom gets nside the cylinder. Any that does will get blown out into the ehaust in just a few moments. And the exhaust pressure will push the oil back up the valve stem.
The intakes are different as the engine runs the vaccum pulls the oil down through the valve stems. Mostly on deccelleration.
If the bike has set awhile it might straighten up and be ok for this season. Let it wait till winter. Denver has winters as bad or worse than PA.
On the carbon You can try filling an oil squirt can with diesel fuel and with the air cleaners off and while running squirt in a can or two of the diesel in each cylinder. Let it soak, this softens the carbon up. After a few hours of soaking do the same with water. the water will knock the softened carbon build up loose and get blown out the exhaust.
New several old mechanics did this on the older cars to clean up the insides.
Don't work so well on the newer cars, plugs up the catalytic converters.
Leo
 
Leo; good thinking, I had considered the exhaust valve may not be the whole problem since the majority of the smoke was still in the cylinder but I hadn't thought about the intake.....why would the bike straighten out? I've heard guys say that their bikes smoke a little bit on start up but then subside, what changes? I'm also intrigued by your diesel suggestion...so I just "spray" it in through the crabs while its running, shut it off, let it sit, then repeat with water? how will the bike react to this?

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The last time I saw it done was on an AMC Hornet, straight six. The guy had the air cleaner off, poured the diesel into the carb using one hand on the throttle to keep it running as he poured. When he was pouring fast enough to stall the engine he stopped. We then went and prepped a pick box for the bedliner.
Came back started the car, poured in the water and the black cloud of exhaust was huge. After it cleared out the exhaust looked cleaner than before and the car ran better.
I don't think it can hurt the engine as long as you have the rpms up so the crud gets blown out. Add the water slowly.
At this point your thinking of tearing the engine apart to check, Trying it first can't hurt and might help.
I've not tried it on a motorcycle.
Leo
 
Sounds like a poor mans seafoam, but i don't think i'll need it. I just took the bike out this morning around the hood and the smoking just stopped. awesome. still runs kind of crappy but i think its just carb work at this point.
 
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