smokin

[sammcgee]

weirdest thing happened....parked the Festiva friday night in the garage....it was running beautiful.....Sat. went to start it and it ran like crap...ran rough and pukin smoke out the exhaust.....tried later in the day and same thing. Sunday morning tried again and it ran perfect.

Mechanic I met said it might have been a hung up oil ring or valve.
Suggested a can of motor flush and 1/2 pint of Seafoam.

So I picked some up last night at Auto Zone.
Have any of you had problems after you have done this?

sam

[Dave G]

My yellow car does that from time to time, except it's running fine the whole time it's smoking. No rhyme or reason to it, just every now and then it will belch grey smoke for a few seconds. Like once every couple of months... I might try some of that seafoam stuff one of these days.

[scitzz]

I would never use an engine flush. Some of the "sludge" built up in your engine may be doing you some favors by sealing up would-be leaks. When you pour the flush in, whooo hoooo, leaks! Seen it happen quite a few times....

[jglutz]

Could be a ton of problems.....though i would suspect internal engine last....Internal problems typically don't behave intermittently...electrical problems do.
If it was really bad. Check the high tension wire from the ignition coil to the centerpost of the dist cap...including looking in the sockets where both ends plug into.

Every year (or less) I have to clean the socket out at the ignition coil...steel wool/scocth brite works well.

Also check all the contacts on the dist and the rotor. Also any moisture build up inside the cap will produce the symptons you described.

[FB71]

^^^ bingo. just what I was thinking. (moisture in cap)

[miami man]

im had both of my festivas die in my driveway because of corrosion in the center tower of the distributer cap and one time it was so corodded that the center tower fused the coil wire in it.

[sammcgee]

hey thanks for the replies.....that's interesting.....it has been damp, foggy and snowy here for the last couple of weeks...will check connections this weekend....thanks again.
she's been running great ever since