No temporary cure can be made but if you have a catalytic convertor fitted you may damage this if it smokes like a battleship. I had the valve seals fail on a 405 but it never did any lasting harm, but when the smoking became bad the police took noticed, so the seals had to be replaced. I was told this was a common fault. The valve guides where not worn at all only the seals.
Hi Guys,
>
> I posted a while ago about my XU-engined 305 with a 405 injection head which
> seems to be burning oil. From what I figured, I reckoned it was coming down
> through the valve seals, mainly because I didn't replace them when I
> stripped and rebuilt the head prior to fitting it on the car - so, sod's law
> says that's the problem ;) Also, I've heard that the valve guides on early
> 405's had a problem with excessive wear (not sure if it's true though).
> I'm pretty certain it's not anything like high pressure from blocked hoses
> or anything, although admittedly, I haven't run any engine cleaning stuff
> through it, but the hoses were fine when I swapped the head and there's no
> sign of anything fouling up in there now.
> I'm trying to figure out if it is the valve guides or if it's actually the
> piston rings.
> Symptoms are as follows:
>
> After leaving the car running at idle for a few minutes when warm, blue
> smoke starts coming out of the exhaust. This gets worse when I pull away. If
> I've been stationary for a long time, it can take a couple of miles to get
> rid of it all.
> Of course, this means I slowly lose oil. I've now noticed that when I'm low
> on oil - almost at the minimum marker - it seems to stop burning oil.
> There's no smoke and I don't seem to lose any more oil (at least, not so
> quickly as to make it visible on the sort of miles I make). My oil pressure
> is still fine according to the gauge.
> Does this make it more likely to be the cylinder head causing the problems?
> I'm just thinking maybe not so much oil is getting up to the head when my
> oil level is that low, making it seem like the problem has gone away. >
> I'm not going to be able to fix it for a while... not enough time or money
> at the moment. What's the best course of action? Is it likely to cause more
> damage more quickly if I leave the oil level low, but not below the minimum?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Chris.
>
>