blue smoke

[Chris_D]

hi all, i'm new to this, my mk2 8 valver has blue smoke coming from the exhaust, it's burning oil, is it the valve seals and how can i go about fixing this and how much is it going to cost

[tobz.]

If you've got blue smoke for a short while on start up, when you've been idling for a while then pull away and when you shut off then re-apply the throttle at speed then yep I would suspect the stem seals. If it smokes all the time then it may be something more sinister like bore wear or rings.

The seals themselves are dead cheap and you should be able to do them with the head still on the car with the right equipment (I've never done them so I don't know too many details). If you were to have a garage do it for you I'd expect to pay about ?150ish

[Chris_D]

no it doesn't do it all the time, just when it gets quite warm sometimes, is it possible to do it with the head on as i was told it all had to come off

[tobz.]

Yep definately possible to do with the head on, apparently you need a special piece of equipment, unfortunately I don't know what that is but I'm sure somebody on here will do. My mum had the stem seals done on  her passat recently and the garage were telling her the head would have to come off so it would need a new head gasket etc etc. I told her it could be done with the head on and it would be cheaper, she mentioned that to the garage and hey presto they managed to 'borrow' the piece of equipment from somewhere and do the job for a much more reasonable cost.

[Alexg40]

Hmm, does sound like stem seals....and yes, it is supposed to be possible to do em without removing the head.

[Veedubgt18v]

i have heard that you could thread rope in the spark plug hole (obviously leaving the end hanging out!) then when you have the cylinder in tdc the rope will be compressed and 'hold' the valve up allowing you to remove the seals with the head in place. only what i have heard tho, i think it was rich said something about this tho