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Thread: M62TU Oil smoke on warm startup

  1. #1
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    M62TU Oil smoke on warm startup

    After changing the oil in my E38 last week, I started noticing some smoke on startup. A tiny puff on cold start (sometimes but not always) and a few seconds of noticeable (but not super heavy) smoke on startup if it's been sitting for a couple of hours but isn't cold yet. Restart within 30 minutes and there's no smoke. Prior to changing the oil I hadn't noticed any smoke.

    First thought was oil level, as I'd filled it to where it was showing just to the top of the full notch in the dipstick when cold. So I pulled out the extractor and removed a little oil, so now it shows right at the bottom of the full notch (which is where the level was before the oil change). It's been a couple of days since the oil level adjustment and the car has been driven around 100 miles, but I still had smoke on a warm restart (after sitting about 90 minutes) yesterday. No smoke (just a slight hint of burned oil smell from the exhaust that went away quickly) this morning after sitting overnight.

    So far, I haven't gotten the car to smoke at all when driving (even high rpm decel followed by a good blast of throttle produces no smoke). Crankcase vacuum seems normal, not excessive (although I ordered a new CCV plate to swap in just in case). The car doesn't seem to be using any measurable amount of oil (dipstick reading didn't change at all in the 900 miles, about 700 of them on the highway, between buying the car and changing the oil and hasn't changed in the 100-ish miles since I adjusted the oil level). The car runs perfectly too, idle is smooth, no misfires at idle or under load, no codes, no obvious signs of a vacuum leak. The valve cover gaskets and upper timing cover gaskets do appear to be weeping a little bit of oil, but nothing significant, so I doubt there's any significant air leakage past the seals.

    Other than replacing the CCV plate on the intake, what should I check for this issue? Especially considering the issue seemed to suddenly appear the day after I changed the oil. Is it possible that I'd gotten the oil level slightly too high and got oil into somewhere it doesn't belong and it just needs a little time to burn off?

  2. #2
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    On mine the OSV was bad inside the engine. Replacing the CCVV did not solve the problem. So I just blocked it and re-routed a breather hose to the ground.
    If your valve cover gaskets are leaking, they will leak a lot worse after you block the PCV (because you removed the vacuum from the crankcase).
    If you haven't, go ahead a replace the gasket on the front of the intake as well as the back one when/if you replace the PCV. They are notorious for leaks
    2001 740i M-Sport
    All Stock, 142K miles

  3. #3
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    This is a common problem with tons of threads. If you want to fix it plan on doing timing guides too. There’s a right way and a wrong way. I wouldn’t half your car unless you like to do stuff twice. Osv is behind the left timing guide and replacing it is the only way to properly fix your problem. Period.

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sundaycruzer View Post
    This is a common problem with tons of threads. If you want to fix it plan on doing timing guides too. There’s a right way and a wrong way. I wouldn’t half your car unless you like to do stuff twice. Osv is behind the left timing guide and replacing it is the only way to properly fix your problem. Period.
    That's what I figured the issue might be (but hoped it isn't). The only thing pushing me to see what else I can find / figure out first is that I don't seem to have the massive oil consumption others have reported with a bad OSV. The only symptom seems to be the one puff of smoke on start (it threw a puff when I left work yesterday but nothing this morning).

    New CCV plate is on its way, so I'll get that on the car in a couple of days and see if it makes any difference. If it doesn't, then I'll have to look at doing the OSV (which will likely mean doing the external X5 OSV for now and then tearing into it for guides and a new internal OSV in the spring / summer once my Jeep is back together from its winter projects and can take DD duty for a bit).

    I did see a few mentions of leaking valve cover gaskets causing symptoms like this due to forcing more air through the OSV and overwhelming it. If the new CCV plate doesn't take care of the issue, would it make sense to do the valve cover and upper timing cover gaskets and see what happens before I commit to tearing the whole front of the engine down?

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by rslifkin View Post
    That's what I figured the issue might be (but hoped it isn't). The only thing pushing me to see what else I can find / figure out first is that I don't seem to have the massive oil consumption others have reported with a bad OSV. The only symptom seems to be the one puff of smoke on start (it threw a puff when I left work yesterday but nothing this morning).

    New CCV plate is on its way, so I'll get that on the car in a couple of days and see if it makes any difference. If it doesn't, then I'll have to look at doing the OSV (which will likely mean doing the external X5 OSV for now and then tearing into it for guides and a new internal OSV in the spring / summer once my Jeep is back together from its winter projects and can take DD duty for a bit).

    I did see a few mentions of leaking valve cover gaskets causing symptoms like this due to forcing more air through the OSV and overwhelming it. If the new CCV plate doesn't take care of the issue, would it make sense to do the valve cover and upper timing cover gaskets and see what happens before I commit to tearing the whole front of the engine down?
    X5 requires permanently screwing up a valve cover. BMW’s are sensitive to vacuum leaks and that will always cause multiple problems, so if your valve covers are leaking..fix them. As far as oil consumption I’ve seen it go both ways, usually it’s accentuated by multiple vacuum leaks or oil leaks. Remember changing ccv usually doesn’t work but often will help the car run better. If it’s not bad deal with it till you can’t stand it. Then do guides and rebuild vanos gears at same time.

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sundaycruzer View Post
    X5 requires permanently screwing up a valve cover.
    My plan to avoid that was to re-route the hoses for the existing CCV to feed from the internal OSV to the external one, then to the CCV on the manifold. And the drain line for the external OSV would get piped into the oil filter canister drain line with a T fitting, that way the whole thing could be removed and returned to stock in the future.

    But for now, it sounds like I should change the CCV plate, do the valve cover and upper timing cover gaskets and then see if the problem is still there or not.

    If it makes any difference to anyone's thoughts on the issue, the car has just under 150k miles on it. I've put about 1000 miles on it since buying it, but it hadn't been driven much for a while before that (about 100 miles in the year before I bought it, about 2000 the year before that).
    Last edited by rslifkin; 12-11-2018 at 09:51 AM.

  7. #7
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    Only problem is the tube coming from ocv is held in by tension, you’ll end up having to take intake off to make your idea work. I’m sure it can be done. Or find someone with extra valve cover. Lol. Also if your car has that kinda milage, it will be in your best interest to do guides. They often grenade at that mileage.

  8. #8
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    I've had the same thought about the guides vs mileage thing. At this point, unless something forces me to dig in that far sooner, I'm planning to do the guides this coming summer. It's a very healthy sounding engine currently (just a tiny bit of VANOS noise at hot idle, but not much). So ideally, I'll be able to go through the rest of the car and sort out anything I find as well as finish up some other non-BMW projects before I get to doing the guides. In the meantime, I've got some time off around the holidays, so that'll give me plenty of time to do the valve cover and upper timing cover gaskets without needing to fish the Jeep out of the back of the garage and make sure it's good for DD use.

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by rslifkin View Post
    I've had the same thought about the guides vs mileage thing. At this point, unless something forces me to dig in that far sooner, I'm planning to do the guides this coming summer. It's a very healthy sounding engine currently (just a tiny bit of VANOS noise at hot idle, but not much). So ideally, I'll be able to go through the rest of the car and sort out anything I find as well as finish up some other non-BMW projects before I get to doing the guides. In the meantime, I've got some time off around the holidays, so that'll give me plenty of time to do the valve cover and upper timing cover gaskets without needing to fish the Jeep out of the back of the garage and make sure it's good for DD use.
    Upper timing covers are a “b” you might want to just do valve covers and vanos solenoid gaskets. Just sayin

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sundaycruzer View Post
    Upper timing covers are a “b” you might want to just do valve covers and vanos solenoid gaskets. Just sayin
    I guess I'll need to clean things up before I order parts so I can confirm that the upper timing covers are actually leaking (it looks like they are).

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by rslifkin View Post
    I guess I'll need to clean things up before I order parts so I can confirm that the upper timing covers are actually leaking (it looks like they are).
    Yah if your pulling the uppers might as well pull the lower and call it done, first thing you should do is buy the timing guide tools it will be a useful tool to have if you plan on owning this car fo awhile. Beisan has a great DIY for guide and vanos rebuild.

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sundaycruzer View Post
    Yah if your pulling the uppers might as well pull the lower and call it done, first thing you should do is buy the timing guide tools it will be a useful tool to have if you plan on owning this car fo awhile. Beisan has a great DIY for guide and vanos rebuild.
    Is it that easy to just pull the lowers and do the guides once the uppers are off? I was under the impression that uppers was a couple extra hours on top of doing the valve covers, but the lowers would be another 10+ hours of work on top of that.

  13. #13
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    M62TU Oil smoke on warm startup

    It’s all a lot of work period. Uppers have tensioner there’s also some pluming that’s in the way. With experience timing guides take 6-8 hours. It’s all the little stuff that eats time.
    Last edited by Sundaycruzer; 12-13-2018 at 09:22 AM.

  14. #14
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    As an update on this, I've narrowed down the situations where it smokes. Amount of smoke at startup is directly related to idle time before shutdown. Give it a good throttle blip before shutdown or park it somewhere that there's no more than a few seconds at idle and there's minimal to no smoke on the next start. Coast into a parking lot, right into a space, let it idle for a few more seconds and then shut it down (like parking at work most days) and it'll blow a good puff on the next start.

    So I'll swap the PCV plate this weekend (parts arrived yesterday) and see if that helps. Hopefully it does, although I'm not holding my breath. Still no measurable oil consumption according to the dipstick, no smoke when driving and no other symptoms, so hopefully either the PCV plate fixes it or hopefully it just stays as-is for a while so I can wait and plan to tear into it in the spring for guides, OSV, etc.

  15. #15
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    Keep us posted. Im 99% sure the CCVV will not solve your problem. The intake is full of oil because the oil separator is not working.
    Like pretty much all e38's, the gaskets are all shot and need replaced -- intake, valve covers, spark plug covers, timing covers, valley pan, etc etc
    2001 740i M-Sport
    All Stock, 142K miles

  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by Johns01E38 View Post
    Keep us posted. Im 99% sure the CCVV will not solve your problem. The intake is full of oil because the oil separator is not working.
    Like pretty much all e38's, the gaskets are all shot and need replaced -- intake, valve covers, spark plug covers, timing covers, valley pan, etc etc
    It's quite possible that the OSV is shot / broken. I'm just trying to rule out the easy stuff first, being that the car doesn't seem to be using any measurable amount of oil (which means it's not constantly vacuuming up oil while I'm driving like I'd expect with a bad OSV). So far it's been about 200 miles since the oil change and such and the oil level hasn't changed at all. The driving since then is probably pretty close to 50/50 around town vs highway. No oil consumption at all in the 900 miles before the oil change either (about 700 of those miles were highway), although I hadn't noticed any smoke until after the oil change. Based on my dealings with poorly designed PCV systems on other cars as well as engines with bad valve stem seals, highway driving should cause it to suck up oil if there's lots of oil being blown through the PCV system (due to more oil spraying around at higher RPM, so more getting sucked up by the PCV plus highway cruise being fairly high-vacuum like idling).

    Valve cover gaskets have been done before but are definitely a little damp (cleaning the engine bay is on this weekend's to-do list so I can see how bad all of the various leaks are). Upper timing cover gaskets look like they're probably leaking a little too. No leaks from the valley pan as far as I can tell though. I don't think the intake gaskets have been done, but there's no signs of them currently leaking (idles perfectly, no whistling or anything, no signs of a vacuum leak).

    At some point in the spring / summer I'm expecting I'll tear into it for intake gaskets, timing chain guides and an OSV regardless, but I'd rather see if I can avoid doing that right now. I should be able to get to the PCV swap on Saturday, so I'll post an update in a few days with the results of that.
    Last edited by rslifkin; 12-13-2018 at 03:40 PM.

  17. #17
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    Changing the PCV has been the standard repair for puffs of smoke for the last 20 years - and although we have seen a couple of problems with the OSV they are few and far in-between - and those on engines that have seen too few oil-changes or attempts at repairs that break the OSV.

    If you have a project car that you would like to strip down and fiddle with, then changing all sorts of bits and bobs is a great pastime - but on cars that are daily-drivers changing the very minimum is always the best way to go. There is nothing quicker than changing timing-chain guides to permanently and expensively knacker a decent engine just because of the multitude of small problems that you will come across.

    My ethos has always to do as little as possible to get the engine running properly - and in this case it is probably changing the PCV with the manifold still in place.....
    Timm..2007 E64 650i Individual Sport..1999 E31 840ci Individual Sport..ex owner of 2000 E38 740..1999 E38 740i V8 M62..1998 E38 735i V8..1993 E32 730i V8..1988 E28 518i


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  18. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by Timm View Post
    My ethos has always to do as little as possible to get the engine running properly - and in this case it is probably changing the PCV with the manifold still in place.....
    That's exactly the plan for now. Especially because this engine is a very healthy one from what I can tell. Looks clean through the oil fill cap, just light oil staining but no buildup anywhere that's visible. Sounds great too, only sounds at warm idle are the injectors ticking and a tiny bit of VANOS noise (which is quiet enough that you can't hear it with the hood closed). Eventually it'll need timing chain guides though, just because they're 17 years / 150k miles old and we know they don't last forever...

  19. #19
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    CCV plate is swapped and I have a feeling that was the fix. It definitely has a bit more crankcase vacuum now than it did before (I think it had too little before) and now the idle changes as expected when you pull the dipstick or the oil fill cap. Before it made no difference at all.

    No smoke when I fired it up after the fix, so I let it idle for about 10 minutes to warm up a bit and then gave it a good throttle blip, still no smoke or anything. Hopefully it continues to behave over the next few days as I drive it so I can call it good for now.

  20. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by rslifkin View Post
    CCV plate is swapped and I have a feeling that was the fix. It definitely has a bit more crankcase vacuum now than it did before (I think it had too little before) and now the idle changes as expected when you pull the dipstick or the oil fill cap. Before it made no difference at all.

    No smoke when I fired it up after the fix, so I let it idle for about 10 minutes to warm up a bit and then gave it a good throttle blip, still no smoke or anything. Hopefully it continues to behave over the next few days as I drive it so I can call it good for now.
    Always great to have a fairly simple fix. Are you still getting the timing codes? Sorry if I scared you, it’s always smart to start with a simple fix like you did. Hopefully your done for awhile. Lol

  21. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sundaycruzer View Post
    Always great to have a fairly simple fix. Are you still getting the timing codes? Sorry if I scared you, it’s always smart to start with a simple fix like you did. Hopefully your done for awhile. Lol
    Timing codes wasn't my car, that was the other thread about oil smoke (and he seemed to have more symptoms). Mine had no codes or any indication that anything was wrong beyond the puff of smoke at startup.

  22. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by rslifkin View Post
    Timing codes wasn't my car, that was the other thread about oil smoke (and he seemed to have more symptoms). Mine had no codes or any indication that anything was wrong beyond the puff of smoke at startup.
    Too many smoky threads for me. Lol

  23. #23
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    Hope it works out for you; I had the same experience with replacing the CCVV -- it seemed to cure the problem at first, but the smokey starts quickly returned after driving it for a few days. Thinking maybe the new part was faulty, I took it apart to find it completely saturated in oil. It should not be drawing that much oil if the OSV is working, so thats when I realized what the real problem was (internal OSV).
    Blocking the PCV and venting the crankcase to atmosphere solved all of the oil consumption problems, but it greatly increased my oil leaking problems. What a mess to clean up -- failed stock gaskets pouring out oil, and the fan blowing it everywhere. This past weekend I replaced the upper timing cover gaskets, vanos solenoid gaskets, intake gaskets, and valve cover gaskets. Sealed it all with Ultra Black too. No more leaks and car runs fantastic! Every gasket I took off was hard as a rock and very brittle. Totally shot. Not sure what gasket material the OE was using, but its substandard to say the least. My guides still looked good at 130k miles....fingers crossed.
    2001 740i M-Sport
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  24. #24
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    Crankcase vented to atmosphere is honestly a terrible solution. It leads to much more water, fuel, etc. buildup in the oil and means the engine requires much more frequent oil changes (especially in cold climates). A PCV that forcibly pulls air through the crankcase is for more than just emissions.

    For mine, I did get a little smoke from it once yesterday (but much less than before), but that's the only smoke I've seen so far. The old CCV wasn't all that oily inside, just some gunky residue on the diaphram and housing (but nothing terrible). I'm thinking the diaphram was just getting stiff and gunked up and wasn't moving properly. I'm still monitoring to see if this actually fixed the issue or not, I think it's still too early to tell for sure.

    John, on yours, were you seeing any noticeable oil consumption with the failed OSV? Or just the smoky starts?

  25. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by rslifkin View Post
    John, on yours, were you seeing any noticeable oil consumption with the failed OSV? Or just the smoky starts?
    No I never noticed the consumption on the dipstick. Just a white cloud on start-ups after sitting. The cloud of smoke is from the intake manifold being coated in oil, and that oil drains down the intake runners and pools on top of the intake valves while sitting. POOF it burns off when started and the cycle repeats.

    Agreed that condensation can build up in a vented crankcase. I dont worry about it because I drive the car long enough (30 minute hwy commute) to boil out any moisture from the oil. Will change at usual interval with the standard 0w40 full syn european car formula. Maybe add an external OSV at some point, but for now I dont care or need it.
    2001 740i M-Sport
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