Lanos, needs engine issue diagnosed

[todmac]

Hello everyone,
I just bought a Daewoo Lanos.
The owner told me the head gasket was blown, but didnt really have any info to back that up. Just his own diagnosis, it runs, but here is what I could discern.
It smokes heavily at startup (hot and cold), the smoking goes away within the first min of driving, however it will still smoke a little at running.
After using the engine to decelerate down a hill, when throttling back up it smokes particularly heavily.
It does not over heat. The check engine light is on.
The engine seems to perform ok, however the RPM's may not fall back to stable as quicily as they should it was hard to tell ( i was checking for some dieseling from oil).

Can I get some opinions on how to further diagnose and repair. My gut tells me to its Valve Seals, and that I could replace them without removing the cylinder head by using a spark plug insert.

Thanks for Feedback.

[Trey05Woo]

What color and smell is the smoke? Water will be pure white, while oil will have a bluish hue. The exhaust will have a sweet coolant like smell when its consuming water, while oil will give off a burning smell.

The spark plugs will tell you what the engine is burning too... There are many ways to determine if the headgasket has failed. One test requires pressurizing the system, another sees you pouring a special fluid which will change color if emissions are detected in the coolant. You can also check for oil in the coolant and viseversa check the inside of the oil cap for a chocolate milk type residue, also the bottom of the coolant resevior, and disconnect the heater hoses and check them as well.

The head does NOT need to be touched to change valve stem seals, only the cams and lifters. Valve stem seals tend to show their fault when the engine comes right off from an extended idle (like pulling away after a red light). Piston rings will normally smoke constantly especially suring high RPM sessions, and you will notice alot of blow by and oil accumulating in the air filter/throttle body area...

[wolfsreign]

-.- head gasket being blowen. wasnt fun.
mine broke apart near cylinder 4 (lanos '00 1.6 Dohc) with the coolant and so i was burning coolant, thus resulting in white smoke, and a weird smell of coolant (heard coolant in the exhaust is harmful for the lungs/brain) also lead the engine to fault a little, as water cannot be compressed/burned. i would be driving it anymore if i were you, and i would do an engine overhaul, atleast, the very minimum, the top half.
thus you can take it apart and inspect, takes less than a week if you spend about 1hr per day.
at the same time you could inspect the seals on the piston's. also the bearings on the rods and crank.

tip, only bitch to the whole process is the weight of the intake, exhaust, valve cover weight, the power steering pump size, and the timing belt taking forever to put on.
~wolf