Smoke from driver side exhaust

[Lmfp]

If its a bad ring youll have to pull the motor.. Unless someone knows another way. But the piston will have to be disconnected from the crank to get it out.

 

[rbrnc512]

That sounds like more than I should try to do on my own so I'll look around for a shop. I have a question for you guys though - what makes you think it isn't a bad head gasket? Couldn't some of these same symptoms be possible if that were the case?

Thanks again for the help so far.

 

[rbrnc512]

I'm not sure if this helps at all, but I should also mention that there is a small oil leak just below the valve cover (side of the head) right by that cylinder. So basically, there is a little oil seep above the spark plug for that cylinder.

 

[rbrnc512]

Did some research and called some people and it sounds like it's definitely a ring and I should probably go with a rebuilt engine. Please let me know if you think that's not right, but otherwise I am going to start exploring that avenue.

Very frustrating - I just got this thing not long ago and compression was fine when I got it.

 

[Rustytruck]

What I would do is put the bad hole with the piston at the top and block the crank from turning. Put an air line to the cylinder and run full air pressure. then listen out the intake, exhaust, valve cover and see where the air is leaking.
If its leaking at the valve cover the ring is bad. if your planning on replacing. the motor at that point you havenothing to loose. I would pull the head on the bad side check the valves and make sure they are seating. I would drop the oil pan in the chassis and unbolt the bad rod and push the assembly out the top. replace the bad ring and put it all back together. mark the piston when you take it out you dont want to install it turned around.
if your dilligent this is a long days work.
Just plan if stuff is bad your going to have to pull the motor and repair the whole shebang. Thats means a different ride for a while if its your daily driver.
Otherwise it buy another motor and get everything ready and pull a swap over a weekend.
I make it sound easy but it isnt and you will need to have some special tools to pull this off.
Ones a 200 dollar repair the other is a 1500 + dollar repair.

I would also check the backlash in the timing chain if its really loose you might as well save the trouble and swap motors. pull the distributer cop so you can see the rotor. rotate the motor clockwise and see the rotor move. line up the timings marks to zero. now rotate backwards watching the rotor as soon as it moves stop and mark the crank. compair the marks on the crank damper with the marks you made you can use the factory timing marks to to estimate the slack. if the slack is over 20 degrees the motor has seen a whole lot of miles.