My sister purchased a 63 valiant with the slant six 3 on the tree. I have been working on it for a while now. It was running when she got it but would die while coasting to a red light or stop sign etc. Took starting fluid to get it going again. Guy she got it from said it had been like that a while, said he rebuilt the carb hoping to fix it...I suppose paper clips and staples may be in carburetor rebuild kits.

I figured that to be a daily driver for her I would do a few things to it and see how it ran afterwards. I ended up replacing both the intake and exhaust manifolds and carburetor from a few guys on here , fuel filter, oil and filter, plugs and wires, converted it over to electronic ignition so new distributor, rotor and cap, ballast resistor and an electric choke, bit more then I had planned but that's how out goes at times.

Now the car starts up and runs reliably but it's smoking like a train. Pretty heavy oil smoke. It was not smoking at all prior to working on it and I am kinda at a loss as to what the hell happened. I checked the timing, it's about 5 degree after, dead on tdc with the advance plugged. Yet to check compression as I just can't imagine it suddenly going from good to bad just like that.

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

I also posted this on another forum hoping to gain more info.

Well if it is truly burning a lot of oil then there's no way to fix that besides new rings...

I'm wondering if maybe its just running way rich? But that wouldn't account for a lot of smoke.

Oil smoke is usually a bluish color, while coolant smoke is just white.

Is it possible the car overheated at all..? Check your coolant and oil levels, check the color of the oil, if it looks like chocolate milk you may have a blown head gasket (water/coolant in your oil will look like a chocolately color instead of a black or dark brown color)

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19 Years young with a passion for all things old.

"Four doors for more....screaming passangers..(;"

"There's no replacement for displacement, but my \6 is still cooler than your V8"

It's oil smoke, you can smell it along with seeing it. I fear rings as well, just not sure how it went from fine to smoke just like that. Pretty disheartening.

Did you change the oil?

Previous owner most likely has crankcase full of Motor Medic or some other goo out of a bottle to seal up the rings to stop burning oil. Once the oil got changed, all that glop drained out and now there is a lot of blow-by.


Minimum would be new rings, probably engine needs an over size rebore, new pistons & rings, and valve seals. Or, locate a good used engine to swap in.

Before you rip it all apart perform a compression test.

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67' Dart GT Convertible; the old Chrysler Corp.
82' LeBaron Convertible; the new Chrysler Corp
07' 300 C AWD; Now by Fiat, the old new Chrysler LLC

Yeah, I did do an oil change. Guy didn't seem shady but I guess that's the goal of some people. Thanks for the responses.

Well, if you decide to rebuild the motor, and you do it well and take your time your sister won't need another car for the rest of her life!

For the rings to be bad it must have eaither sat for very long or has a couple hundred thousand miles or more. Any idea of the actual milage...? That would also help constitute a rebuild... Any motor is really only good for 200-300k IMO. After that it will need some love

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19 Years young with a passion for all things old.

"Four doors for more....screaming passangers..(;"

"There's no replacement for displacement, but my \6 is still cooler than your V8"