Could This Be Anything But Valve Stem Seals?

[bloodred]

Problem: *Big* cloud of lazy blue smoke on startup. Totally cleared after 3 seconds. After that, no smoking under any conditions.

Background: Just replaced the valve stem seals with viton ones from FPS (to fix a much less pronounced version of this problem). Also replaced rocker cover gaskets & belts. K8ZE engine w/ 185000 km. I'm 99% sure I didn't mix the exhaust and intake seals.

Oddity: The amount of smoke seems to vary randomly. Occasionally there is virtually none. Its better when I park on a heavily tilted area (i.e. right hand side of the car facing downhill)

Question: Is there any chance this could be anything but a bad seal or two (or 24)? I'm not looking forward to spending another couple of days redoing this job.

Question2: Diagnosing this? I'm thinking of pulling the manifolds and rocker covers and squirting 0W/30 oil on the seals to see if any runs down the valve stems. Any better ideas?

Cheers.

[Ryan]

Just pop off the intake manifold and see if there is any oil sitting on the valves.

How's your compression?

[PATDIESEL]

yeah I would check compression, could be old worn out piston rings. Usually one or the other and since you are pretty confident in the seals then I would consider the rings next. The rings usually wear faster anyway.

[Ryan]

Also you should note that the stem seals are just one part of the seal - the majority of it is done by the valve stem/guide clearance. Stem seals will only mask a guide clearance issue.

[bloodred]

Did the whole job again - this time using felpro viton seals, and it seems to have fixed the problem.

Last seals were unbranded "premium" viton seals from fordprobestore. Recommend to avoid these like the plague.