I'll tell my story real quick, just so you see the history....

broke down on highway about 3 weeks ago due to bad opti, while on the side of the highway, I would repeatedly try to crank the car over hoping it would start. I didn't crank for a long period of time though.

Changes opti over the weekend, started it up and I heard a valvetrain ticking on the pass. side. I took off the valve cover and noticed the rockers were a little loose (1.6 roller rockers that are about 3 years old)
I tightened them down until the noise stopped and let it idle and drove around the block. the car starts/runs great! I didn't rev it too high, but mostly idle in the garage while I purged the cooling system. tonight I noticed a little bit of oil in the drivers side exhaust tip and some smoke just on that side when its running. (this is the side that I haven't taken the valve cover off yet)

what could be causing this oil coming out of the exhaust? and what would have caused the rockers to come loose all of a sudden?

Need help!!!!

 

for the oil to travel that far to the pipes is a record without you noticing the smoke first, check your oil level to see it you are somehow transporting it to the tail pipes.

 

oil level is perfect. I could smell gas in the oil after it was towed home 3 weeks ago, do you think it diluted the oil enough where it is going past the rings? But it only seems to be coming out of the drivers side exhaust??? The fun never ends, does it!!

 

Change the oil.

 

My SWAG (Scientific Wild Azz Guess) is while you were repeatedly trying to start with a bad opti you flooded cylinders with gas diluting oil( washing cylinder walls) and perhaps scoring either cylinder walls, rings or both.There is a possibility you actually broke a ring. Absolutely change the oil. My first inspection point would be the spark plugs to get a clue about differences between cylinders. A long shot but you might learn something. I also think compression and leak down tests are in order. I do not see this causing valve adjustment to suddenly change. If there are no obvious issues, strange noises or poor operation I would drive it keeping a watchful I on how it operates.

 

gas in the oil will ruin your bearings fast, then you have real problems,

i think i agree that the loose rockers are an isolated occurrence, i suppose the rockers are rollers? and cranking didn't loosen them how far were they off?

 

I'm going to change the oil tonight and see what happens. I did check 2 pugs and they both looked fine. sounds like I'll be doing a compression test as well just to see whats going on in there.

They are roller rockers and they were not that far off at all, one or two were just loose enough to cause a little tick.

I'll update later tonight

thanks for your help!

 

after the oil change just drive it a few hundred or thousands of miles, if it burns oil, then worry about compression tests, you said it runs great i would worry about the rings, carburetor cars had it much worse i believe.

 

so far so good. I changed the oil with fresh Mobil 1 and filter and its looking good. Took it around the block and it ran perfect and there was very little smoke coming out of the exhaust. I'll out some miles on it this week and hope for the best!