Why are you smoking?!

[jfields86]

After replacing the valve cover gaskets yesterday, I started the bonneville to see it was still smoking. Today i took the exhaust manifold off, cleaned them and the exhaust ports. Also got down to the heat shields. Put it all back together and still getting good amounts of smoke, smells like burnt rubber though that i actually took the time to take a wiff. Didnt see anything that stood out as getting hot/ melting. Any ideas? And i don't see any fresh signs of oil, also there's none on the ground like before. Kind of looks like its coming from beneath the manifold.

[J Wikoff]

Give it a little time. Manifolds may smoke for a short time after work if any residue was left on them.

[jfields86]

Never had a vehicle smoke like that before on me. Also, never had a vehicle with so much build-up in it before! There was almost 1/4in of crud and oil residue on the lower heat shields! I got most of it off. Ive been letting it run on and off through out the day, does seem to be thinning out some. Im just impatient by nature.

[96 SSEi]

hi, my guess would be the 'crud you loosened and left behind, the crud is not a solid mass sticking somewhere anymore so its contacting the manifold and burning
I would clean it in place with first with wd40 - a good degreaser - and then brake clean to get rid of the 40 and some water - let idle, hood open to normal temp and it should be gone

[jfields86]

Thanks, I will have to try that. Only took about 15/20 minutes to remove the manifold, so I will probably do that again to make sure I can get the majority of it. Between sprays of course. Spray, remove manifolds, clean, replace manifolds and next step.