Hi all,
There appears to be a fair amount of knowledge here, so maybe someone can help me out. I have an 04 3500 with the 5.9 HO diesel. It only has about 30K miles on it as I only use it for hauling camper and towing boat. But since my other car died, I'm driving it 40 miles each way to work every day. I've previously never noticed any excessive smoke when starting or running.
About a month ago I did my own oil change using Delo (Chevron) 15-40 heavy duty oil for diesel engines. I don't recall the brand of filter. Since then I've noticed a large amount of blue smoke when I first start the engine after it has sat for 6+ hours. After about 15 seconds, the smoke goes away. Occasionally, in conjunction with an unusually high amount of smoke, it will run rough for a few seconds, and then settle down. After 5 seconds, it seems to run normally, with no excessive smoke. At first I thought maybe I had overfilled it with oil. It was at the high end of, but still within, the hash marks.
So yesterday (well before it's due for a change) I decided to eat the cost of the oil and try draining and refilling it.this time making sure it's at the low end of the hash marks. The first time I started it after refilling with oil, it blew even more blue smoke than usual and had some difficulty starting. Again, after 5 seconds or so, the smoke cleared up and it ran normally.
Obviously I'm getting oil draining into one or more of the cylinders. Since it's still under warranty, I'm planning on taking it in to the dealer. But I'm wondering what would cause something like this? I saw some older posts about using cheap filters containing neoprene causing some problems, but I don't see how that could cause this.
Thanks in advance.