White smoke from breather valve

[NASA1]

I have a 2004 BHC3ZZ4 and most recently I have what I consider a substantial amount of white smoke and oil coming from the valve cover breather unit. I've changed the PVC and the gaskets around the breather and PVC. It seemed to have started after I switched to Amsoil 20/50, Archoil additive and Evans coolant. I've since reverted back to Lucas 20/50, no Archoil additive but kept the Evans coolant. The motor has about 40K on it as I ride it a lot...18K last year. It also has a new rebuilt Edelbrock 750; complete tune-up and just about new parts all the way around. The transmission has TWO coolers and is always around 130-140 degrees. The engine never runs hotter then 180; however it will jump to 205 when sitting. Is there repair short of having to ship it to Dallas or Dryersburg? There are NO mechanics in the Pacific NW and Boss Hoss does not seem to be too interested in training anyone unless they agree to become a dealer...about a $100K investment. Please email your thoughts to: HALTSDAD@YAHOO.COM

[hogv8]

I don't know what your problem is but you do know that GM recommends either 5w 30 or 10w 30 weight oil in their 350 engines . .

[BossHossMan]

Here is a PCV Typical configuration and components
There are only a few components involved in the PCV system.
 A breather is located in one valve cover through a rubber grommet. This allows fresh air to enter the engine. There are two popular ways to do this.
 A tube that connects the valve cover to the air filter.
 Or a small air filter/breather that pushes directly into the hole in the valve cover.
 The PCV valve itself is located on top of the valve cover opposite the one with the fresh air intake, usually through a rubber grommet.
 The area inside the valve cover below where the grommet is located should be baffled. This helps to avoid oil getting sucked into the PCV valve.
 A rubber hose that connects the PCV valve a vacuum source, usually at the front of a carb or into the plenum area of the intake, not routed into an individual intake runner.
 This setup allows fresh air to enter one side of the engine, go through crankcase, and be introduced into the intake tract.
You should avoid attaching the breather tube and PCV to the same valve cover. This will not vent enough of the combustion gases.

As you can see the only way you can get smoke coming out of the breather valve is because you have no vacuum because the line is plugged, the PCV is incorrect or there is no longer a good connection to the Carb port. This actually happened to me after I changed my PCV on my ZZ4. What I discovered was the PCV valve they sold me was faulty and passed the air the wrong direction. I put on another new PCV (now from NAPA) and made sure the air went toward the carb. I also had to replace the breather because it was now filled with oil from the engine but fortunately they are cheap. Presto problem solved.

[NASA1]

There is smoke and oil coming from the breather valve. Word has it, the #8 valve ring is bad. In any event, I attached a hose from the breather valve and ran it down the front of the bike so the oil does not land on the block and start to smoke...now the exhaust smokes. There is no cure from what I've been told, so I'm having Curtis in Dallas change out the engine to either a 383 or 350.

[Carl La Fong]

No cure other than a new engine and a 3000 mile trip?!?!?! You do realize it is an ordinary Chevrolet engine, don't you? Sounds like bad valve guides to me. If you have a basic set of tools and a Chevy repair manual, it's a half day job to pull the heads. Send them out for a valve job and bolt them back on

[rocketsteve]

As Carl says, and in addition, even a quick & simple compression test should give you a better idea of what's going on inside...

[Jack]

Who was able to diagnose a bad #8 valve ring?

[Carl La Fong]

A better question is, what is a valve ring???

[NASA1]

First of all I have NO tools nor the training to remove the heads off the bike. Second, there is no guarantee it is the valve guides, so by the time I pay a mechanic to remove the heads and evaluate the issue, I could spend as much as it cost to ship the bike to Dallas. No one at Boss Hoss has mentioned anything about valve guides or anything else for that matter...they are little help. They only agree there is a problem. A local mechanic removed the spark plug from the #8 cylinder and stated the ring was bad...perhaps "valve" was the incorrect word on my part.

[rocketsteve]

Just noticed your PCV is on the Right rocker box cover, has it always been on that side?
Mine is on the Left but unsure if this makes any difference with air flow through the engine...
[Sent you a PM]

[Jack]

This happened immediately after the oil change and coolant flush - right?
You’ve changed the oil, but the Evans coolant remains? All of the PVC work was after it started pissing out oil?

Not everyone is a mechanic, including myself, but you don’t need to be a Boss Hoss mechanic to troubleshoot the most popular engine ever built. Your condition has nothing to do with the bike around it. Any competent mechanic in the Seattle area should be able to diagnose and repair your bike in short order. Is there a hot rod shop around?

Now, trying to troubleshoot through you can be a challenge, especially when you may be getting bad information from a guy who pulled a spark plug.

There is no valve ring, there are a lot of things that can go wrong with the valve and the surrounding parts, but none of them are valve rings. Could be a valve guide... not sure how that would be diagnosed by pulling a spark plug. There is a valve spring too, maybe that is what he said?

There is a piston ring(s). If when the plug was out he did a compression test, that may have been telling, doesn’t sound like that is what was done.

Unless you have time and money to burn, find someone local. Someone around there would love the work. Sounds like you put a TON of miles on the bike, seems like you wouldn’t want to be without it for long.

[Ravinsomniac]

Pull the spark plugs, lay them next to each other and look for any that look a different color or oily. That may be the cylinder in question.

[Grand Canard]

Lots of great advice already provided such as check spark plugs to determine if problem is isolated only to a certain cylinder, perform a leak-down test which is much better than compression test.
There are plenty of hot-rod shops around that can and will check those things and tell you exactly where there problem lies.
It's no big deal for any decent hot-rod shop to yank and replace engine even though they've never done it before; any proper mechanic can look it over and quickly figure it out, if not, move on to another shop.
A couple of years ago when I owned BH, I took a trike to Hot Rod Joes, one of our local hot-rod shops in Lafayette, Louisiana to see about them becoming a service center for BH. They checked-out the trike, crawled under and over it said piece of cake, stated they didn't need to go to Dyersburg for factory training because there wasn't anything special regarding that trike, stated matter of factly that they could rebuild that transmission and engine blindfolded, the brakes and suspension wasn't a problem either. They sell, service, install and tune multiple EFI systems from different manufacturers, pretty much can do it all.
So there you have it, you and everyone else out there which require mechanical services, go find your local hot-rod shops, show them your ride, see if they're willing to service your scooter.

https://www.holley.com/local_speed_shops/
https://www.holley.com/holley_efi_dealers/
Rick