Phoenix79

I replaced the oil, oil filter, did some coolant fixes, installed a new coolant recovery tank cap and tightened 2 bolts on my left exhaust manifold.

During the process of pouring in the new oil, I spilled a small amount of oil on the heatshield and the manifold. I cleaned it up but some of the oil could of slipped behind the heatshield. On any account the car has smoke coming from the manifold right where the spill area was at. I drove to wal mart to pick up a breather filter and saw alot of smoke coming out of the car. Wasn't black smoke more like a white smoke, didn't make me cough or burn my eyes. On my way back the smoke was less. I untightened the bolts on the manifold that I did tighten and drove on the highway doing 70 and sometimes 80. The temperature guage reads real nice, it's alot better than before now that I fixed some of the cooling problems and have the proper amount of oil in the car, but the smoking was still there when I got home. A lot smaller amount by all means than the Wal mart incident. I'm hoping it's just oil underneath the heat shield or some excess after the spill. Both manifolds are equally hot after the drive and everything under the hood is at normal temperatures *touch wise*. Nothing is real hot that I can't touch it for 2 seconds except for both manifolds which I would assume is correct. I just wanna be sure that everything is fine and HOPING someone can tell me that the oil that I spilled is burning. I have to drive the car to work today and would like to get there and back problem free. First vette, no experience on cars but I'm slowly trying to learn. Please lay the words of wisdom and experience on me. I really hope this isn't a huge problem.

Thanks in advance!

Fastguy

Sounds like its still burning off the oil you spilled.

Paul L

I agree.

yellow 72

Oil spilled on the exhaust manifolds as you describe can take quite awhile to completely burn off.
I'm sure that's what your smoke is. :cheers:

Fastguy

Also, a leaky valve cover gasket will leak oil between the head and ex-manifold and cause a hell of a lot of smoke from the engine AND the exhaust.