TheSamba.com :: View topic

Wed Oct 20, 2004 2:38 pm

Hi there... hoping some of you more technical types might have a thought or two on this. I recently purchased a '73 412 Wagon... it has supposedly been sitting for quite a while, only having been driven sporadically (just a few thousand miles over the past 7-8 years). When I got it, It smoked a little when it was first started, but would stop (the smoke) after a few minutes. I gave it a full tune-up (plugs, points, condenser, wires, oil change, etc) and did a compression test, which came out good (approx 120 lbs all the way around).

So now the smoking has basically stopped, but instead there is a pretty strong odor.. again, just after starting the car. It goes away after 2-3 minutes and everything smells normal after that. It's almost a hot, burning smell, but not exactly. It doesn't use any oil to speak of... the odd thing is that the smell goes away pretty quickly. I'd think if I had a burned valve or something that the smell would stick around longer, or even not go away at all.

The car idles fine, has plenty of power, shifts smoothly... the oil light has never come on, and does not smell hot after driving for an extended period of time. I plan to take it down to my mechanic but thought I'd post here first & see if anyone had any ideas. Any thoughts would be appreciated... thanks!

Thu Oct 21, 2004 7:04 am

I would recommend checking to see that you are getting good airflow over the cylinders. I smoked an engine one time because a mouse had made a home on top of the cylinders and carried all kinds of pine needles and leaves up there and it blocked the airflow.

I had another one that smelled awful because of a coating that had developed inside the gas tank because there had been gas in there for 6 years :shock: . Apparently, when I put new gas in, it was disolving this crud and mixing with the new gas and when the car was running it smelled terrible. The only thing with that is that the smell probably wouldn't go away after a few minutes so that's probably not your problem.

Did your car start to smell after the smoking stopped, or did it happen all the time?

Thu Oct 21, 2004 8:01 am

I really only noticed it after the smoking stopped. Like I said, I know it has sat for quite a while, so I thought some of this might be due to some sort of buildup... i de-greased the engine block to get rid of any crud on the outside & also ran fuel injector cleaner through the system in case there was some buildup in that area. It's just really odd... I can drive the car for 30 minutes to get across town, and when I get out of the car it smells normal... but for the first 4-5 minutes, I notice that awful smell. I guess I'm not super-worried about it, since ther are no other indications that something is really wrong, but I'll probably take it to my mechanic anyway just for a good thorough once-over. Click the "gallery" button to see my 412... I had a silver-blue '73 412 wagon several years and couldn't keep it due to circumstances, so when I saw this one I had to have it :)

Sun Oct 24, 2004 5:00 pm

It's likely some baked-on buildup on the heat exchangers or the cylinder heads.

Wed Oct 27, 2004 4:58 pm

Thanks, chillz1... I think you're probably right. After getting home from about a 20 minute drive yesterday, I climbed under the car and saw a little bit of smoke coming directly off the heat exchangers. I had de-greased the outside of them a few weeks ago when I did the bottom of the engine block, but never really thought that there might be some sort of build-up inside. Still running great, so I know it's gotta be something minor like that. Looks like I've got another weekend project to schedule in here soon! :)