1985 Smoke and leakage from top of engine

Smoke coming from around “quattrovalvole” cover and some leaks. There was also some hissing. Gasket? Thoughts?

 

Need a bit more description, is the smoke visbily coming out around the cover, or just more generally? More to the right or left side of the engine bay? Is it an oil smelling smoke, or more of a sweeter coolant type of smell?

 

It was visibly coming from around the cover. It did smell sweet like coolant. Some drips looked more like oil.

 

There is a coolant hose under the plennum, it requires taking the plennum off to access, it may well be original. It also gets very hot where it is located, it is probably leaking, possibly will catastrophically fail. (Be careful sticking your head in there when things are hot to inspect things, the hose can burst under the coolant pressure).

The hissing may well be a split hose releasing some pressure?

Is there any sign of coolant leaking? Low level in the resevoir, some puiddling in the engine vee under the plennum, or drips on the ground?

 

All of those things ( leaks, puddling). When you say catastrophically fail, what do you mean? Just the part needs to be replaced? Engine was actually running great when I shut it off. This occurred when driving it around the block. All temps looked normal.

 

I mean a hose can burst under the hot coolant pressure, and if you are looking under the hood you will have coolant spray in your face. That is the potential catstrophe I am referring to.

You can look at that hose under the plennum after the car is fully warmed up with the engine running you might even see the hose bulging out. If a hose burst while driving, if you keep driving the car will overheat and warp the cylinder heads.

The hose is what would need replacing, should do that one preventatively even if your smoke problem is something else.

 

"Smoke" is far different from "steam" . Do a search on "106241" for prior threads/pictures -- if the coolant hose is the trouble (probably is), you'll also probably have to do some gymnastics with the fitting (106241) that it attaches to.

 

I've done that short hose with the plenum in place. It hurt like hell, but can be done. Later I removed the plenum to do something else and that was not really a big deal, other than worrying about dropping something inside the engine , like the little washers!!!!

 

There is a great YouTube video I watched about removing the plenum that emphasized sliding paper over the intakes so those washers don’t fall in.

in looking closer, it does seem to be the hose on the front side of the plenum that needs replacing. I need to get the part ordered.

 

If you can take a picture of the specific hose you refer to that would be good for this threads posterity.

 

what hose at the front side of the plenum on a 85 308QV? Vacuum lines?