Funky shifting --> now white smoke from tail pipe

[Maui Cruiser]

1995 3.0 V6 Automatic

1. When driving, noticed the transmission shifted out of gear and into neutral, again and again. Stopped driving.
2. Oil change. Everything out, 5 quarts in.
3. When driving, still dropping into neutral. White smoke erupted from tail pipe.
4. Transmission fluid dipstick shows empty. Added 2.5 quarts.
5. When driving, lots of white smoke from tail pipe. Drives oddly, some rattling, loss of power.
6. Oil dipstick looks really high. Drained a quart (now at 4).
7. Decent driving performance, still lots of white smoke.
8. Oil dipstick still really high. WTF?

Blown head gasket? This seems to be the consensus for white smoke.
Transmission ****ed from momentary loss of lubrication?
Dropping into neutral because it ran dry somehow?
I'm wary of driving until I can get an accurate diagnosis.

 

[penbergm]

Probably head gasket with water mixing with oil and causing the dip stick to show high.

Over filling the transmission will not hurt it (and should help it) but make sure you dont have a big leak.

 

[Maui Cruiser]

How to be sure of what is wrong?

Thanks for your reply.

How can I check to make sure it was a head gasket burst and not another avenue for water/coolant to get in? I don't want to order the parts, get neck deep and realize it's something else!

How come this all happened at the same time as a seemingly normal oil change?

 

[fourwd1]

h
Head gasket or cracked head is the only way I can think of for coolant to get into cylinder and be burned, which is causing the white exhaust.

Oil and coolant can mix if a worn timing chain and guides cause slack in the chain to wear a hole through the cover, but it shouldn't get into a cylinder that way.

 

[Maui Cruiser]

A backyard mechanic said it's definitely burning oil. No overheating or loss of coolant, and by smelling, and noticed heavy black carbon on tailpipe the consensus is that there's oil getting burned internally. It's weird, the oil dipstick keeps showing up super high, and my transmission fluid is going... somewhere... is there any way the transmission fluid is going somewhere that is not onto the ground?

Even if a compression test tells me which cylinder is the culprit, am I looking at a job I can do myself to replace a valve ring or similar?

Can I drive this thing smoking away to the garage or should I tow?

 

[Maui Cruiser]

Turns out I was burning oil and losing transmission fluid because I was draining the wrong pan! Amateur hour over here!

Drained the oil pan, discarded 9 quarts and change, put in new oil, topped off the ATF and now drives normally. She burned off the excess oil and runs fine.

Thanks for your time and sorry for the confusion.
I'm feeling dumb but stoked that I'm not opening up the engine!!!

 

[Maui Cruiser]

Now the engine dips in RPM's constantly

After burning oil in the combustion chamber (faulty oil change on my part put about 9 quarts in there and ran it a couple times) now I'm experiencing an undulating RPM, it keeps dropping, especially significantly in the lower RPM's. At a stop light, it will stall.

I changed out the spark plugs, which were fouled.

I suspect my fuel injectors are now clogged because of the oil burned in their proximity. Is this valid?

I could pull the injectors out and take a look, try to hand clean them if y'all think that would fix the cause of what seems like a terrible combustion situation....

Any help greatly appreciated. Anybody on Maui want a Toyota???

 

[flyinhawaiian01]

Ho brah, gotta lay off da chronic! Nah nah, only joke!

First thing I'd do is check compression. If you had 9 quarts of oil in the engine, there would have been a lot of piston slap into that oil, and you may have hurt those rings.

Check for codes too, then after that, reset the ecu to make sure everything is cleared from memory. It'll take up to 50 miles of driving before the ecu has re-learned all of its settings, but that may improve the rough idle.

I'd probably also finish the rest of a service, such as cap/rotor/pcv and re-time the engine. Check the tps setting and change the air filter out.

As long as the engine's compression comes back good on all cylinders, nothing should be physically hurt, but I suspect the smoke you saw was oil from the oil pan being rammed past the rings and into the chamber. Could be the white smoke was actually atf and not water.

Which brings the next question, how's the radiator fluid? Clean? Any oil residue on the rad cap? If there is, you blew a head gasket, or it wasn't cleaned well from a previous head gasket repair.

Good luck brah!

 

[Maui Cruiser]

What is this thing? (95 V6 3.0L Auto)

What is this thing? (95 V6 3.0L Auto)

Found this plastic piece floating around in the engine bay... no idea where it should be or if it's causing any of my current issues...

Anybody know?

Mahalo,
MauiCruiser