Help asap! On a road trip. White smoke from valve cover and dipstick.

[memsiej]

Driving to Montana. 1984 Grand Wagoneer. No problems while driving but we stopped at a rest stop and noticed a little smoke from
Under the hood. Popped it and the smoke could come in little bursts about every minute from the valve cover area. Pulled the dipstick to check the oil and a little smoke came outta there too. Oil level is good. Started the car and no smoke. But I'm still worried. Safe to drive the hour to town? Thoughts???

[ShagWagon]

Sounds like an oil leaking on to the exhaust manifold. Might be from valve cover. Tr snugging the valve cover bolts to see if one is loose and if that stops it.

Check oil level more often to see if it's losing oil fast and keep eye on pressure gauge if you feel confident it works.

[memsiej]

Yea we're gonna keep an eye on oil level. Thanks!!

New problem:

It's 100 degrees here. We stopped for lunch and when we started it again it started then died after 5 seconds. Then it wouldn't start- had a really bad grinding noise and I saw there was fuel pooled under the carb. Checked around and couldn't see where it was coming from. Had someone try to start it and I couldn't see fuel coming out. After a few nasty sounding cranks it started, but I'm worried. What was up? Safe to drive? Thoughts?

[rapom]

Fuel probably started boiling in the carb from the heat of the engine. Engine gets hotter after shutting it off in hot weather for a few minutes which made the fuel boil in the carb. Once you cranked the engine again, you had to crank it to fill the carb with fuel again to get it to start. Not sure how fuel got on your intake, but I would check it out with the hold popped to see if there is a leak. Also check after you shut the engine down to see if it leaks out of the carb when it boils.

[letank]

at 100F, make sure to pop the hood up when you stop, it helps to fight the gas boiling out of the carb and the fuel line;

Pooling of gas as mentioned in other post, the fuel inlet valve could be sticky...

[twisted frame]

Grinding noise when cranking could be the starter ring gear not meshing with the flywheel. That's something you might be able to just deal with until you can replace the starter when you get home. If it totally fails and just grinds, replacing the starter out in a parking lot somewhere isn't that bad, that is, if it hasn't chewed up the teeth on your flywheel. Obviously, not trying to offend anyone's intelligence, just being safe, disconnect the battery before working on the starter.

[deckroid]

Last summer I had the boiling gas thing. Switching over to non-eth fuel saved me. pure-gas.org is a great reference. If you have a starter issue, NAPA has them in stock at 85% of places I have checked online. I know because I had to drive an hour to Boise to get one. As for the oil, as mentioned, dripping oil on manifold or exhaust is usually the answer. I had a big leak from the seal around the pan that I got fixed. I didn't want the hassle of doing it myself. Cost me about 2 hours shop time, plus the $12 seal.

[rocklaurence]

Crank case pressure is causing the smoke from the valve covers and dip stick. It maybe the PCV stuck close or not installed. However, if the PCV is working, the piston rings maybe going/are bad. The piston gases are getting past the rings and pressurizing the block. Bad rings would also explain the hard starts and other issues.