Buddy massively over filled engine, lots of white smoke, where do I start diagnosing?

Hi everyone

Slightly off topic as this doesn't pertain to diesels,but I figured some of the gurus here would be able to help me out. My buddy who doesn't know much about cars has a 2001 honda civic, and well as the title states, he thought he was low on oil for some reason and decided to add some oil... He called me saying his car was blowing lots of white smoke so my immediate thought was blown head gasket. Then he decided to tell me it started blowing a lot of white smoke only after he added oil, to which I asked how much oil and he said around 4L (car only takes 3.2L total )

I drained all the oil, which was around 6 to 6.5L in total, then refilled with the correct amount and of course it's still blowing a ton of white smoke... My guess is the head gasket is blown as I originally suspected, however I did take the spark plugs out and 3 of 4 were absolutely soaked with oil

Car has 340000km so it's not worth anything. If it is the headgasket it's going straight to scrap but I want to confirm it's that before I give my buddy the verdict. For what it's worth the car was run low on coolant and slightly over heated a few months back, but ever since I added coolant it's been fine (hence another reason which leads me to believe bad head gasket)

Which direction should I start looking to diagnose? I could of course do the test for blown headgasket but I don't want to spend time looking in the wrong place

Here's some pictures of the plugs and coils

Has the coolant level changed? Are you sure it's white smoke and not slightly blue smoke? How does the oil look, as far as the color goes. It's not guaranteed, but typically, if the coolant can get in the cylinder, it can get in the oil, so the oil starts looking like chocolate milk. Also, almost every blown head gasket that I've experienced blowing tons of white smoke, drank coolant like crazy; so if the level isn't changing, probably not the head gasket.

Aside from that, if the car will be scraped otherwise, just keep driving it and figure out if the coolant level changes. If it doesn't, then he's just got some oil blow-by.

Could definitely use some new, quality plugs though... among other things.

Yup, toss in some new plugs , take a jug of water, and take it for a drive. Good chance the smoke will clear up after a bit.

Yeah, those late night infomercial spark plugs certainly need to go, LOL. Hondas use NGKs. Not necessary to try and overthink that.

As far as smoke, if it pumped a bunch of oil in to the exhaust, it may smoke for quite a while. Hondas (especially Civics) do not take well to overheating. They are an open deck block, meaning, the cylinders are not really connected to the block at the top, the water jacket is open. So they do bad things quickly if they get too hot. And the 2001-2005 1.7L Civic engine is one of the worst for this. Those are pretty crappy cars after a while, so I wouldn't spend much time or money on it either. Especially in your area (geez, the rust on the valve cover bolts!!! ).

... why does the far left plug look as if it has never gotten hot?....

the other 3 show some discoloration which I would expect, that one looks new (except oil covered) ... may want to look at wires / distributor too, while you're in there...

That plug was probably so fouled up that it wasn't firing and got fuel soaked. Could be a bad coil pack too, I suppose. They don't look great.

The smoke was pretty white and did have the hint of a sweet smell, which is why it leads me to believe it's burning coolant

The coolant level is really hard to tell since the tank is so discolored/dirty to begin with, you really can't see the level... I did take the coolant tank out a few months ago when he had the overheating issue because I couldn't properly see the level, but I didn't clean the inside of it as I wasn't sure what would be a good remedy and didn't want to add some solvent that would deteriorate the tank (and frankly didn't care since the car is an absolute piece of ****)... any suggestions on getting the inside of the tank nice and clean so I can properly monitor the level?

The car did sound like it misfired for a couple of seconds when I first started it after draining the oil and adding the proper amount, but that didn't surprise me after seeing the condition of the spark plugs. I did check for codes and the car had zero which was amazing given in how crap of a condition the car is in. Oilhammer, if you think those valve cover bolts are bad, you would laugh at how bad the entire car is... I have no idea how it's still running, hence why I don't want to even spend much time diagnosing/fixing it

Once I clean the coolant tank, add coolant and throw some new plugs in I will drive the car around the neighborhood and monitor the coolant level and temps... if the smoke persists and doesn't go away, along with coolant disappearing then I will just tell him to scrap it since it's probably not even worth 200 dollars at this point

Thanks for all the suggestions and help everyone, I really appreciate it

sniderbm said:

... why does the far left plug look as if it has never gotten hot?....

the other 3 show some discoloration which I would expect, that one looks new (except oil covered) ... may want to look at wires / distributor too, while you're in there...

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Maybe he's one of those people that replace one spark plug at a time.

2.2TDI said:

any suggestions on getting the inside of the tank nice and clean so I can properly monitor the level?

Thanks for all the suggestions and help everyone, I really appreciate it

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Maybe CLR? I don't know how that would react with the heat, electrical charge, and the head gasket though. If you removed it from the system to clean it, however, it'd probably be fine. Honestly... probably not worth the time. I would just grab a couple coffee stir sticks or Popsicle sticks and use them as makeshift dipsticks. Stick one in before the drive, let it sit for 5 secs in there, then set it aside. Use another after the drive, same procedure, compare the two.

Honestly though, my expectation is that after a while, a head gasket will drain the overflow tank.

Best of luck. If it's a goner... have some fun with it before you scrap it!

USMCFieldMP said:

Maybe he's one of those people that replace one spark plug at a time.
Maybe CLR? I don't know how that would react with the heat, electrical charge, and the head gasket though. If you removed it from the system to clean it, however, it'd probably be fine. Honestly... probably not worth the time. I would just grab a couple coffee stir sticks or Popsicle sticks and use them as makeshift dipsticks. Stick one in before the drive, let it sit for 5 secs in there, then set it aside. Use another after the drive, same procedure, compare the two.
Honestly though, my expectation is that after a while, a head gasket will drain the overflow tank.
Best of luck. If it's a goner... have some fun with it before you scrap it!

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I did think of CLR aswell but was also wondering of the impact it would have once I re installed it. My other thought was vinegar and baking soda, usually cleans stuff pretty well and if I throughly rinse it with water afterwards I don't see why there would be an issues.

But you are right, this car is definitely not worth the time and money. I'm only helping out because he's a close buddy. Some plugs and coolant won't run him more then 50 bucks which is the most that's worth spending.

I'd take a pressure washer (carefully) to the expansion tank. If you destroy it Rockauto probably has a new Chinese one for $7.

A rusty 2001-2005 Civic might be vaporized if you get a pressure washer too near it. I tried washing a Subaru I had once, found the only thing holding the paint together was the dirt... because the metal underneath was long gone.

Yea this car is fried.

This is what the coolant reservoir had in it when I took it apart to try and clean it



I put the new plugs in with zero hope and the car was still spewing smoke like crazy... drove it around the block and the thing had zero power, likely because it was being choked in oil, there were moments when it regained power only to quickly lose it... I could've likely let it run to try and burn off more of the oil but it wouldn't have done the new plugs any favor... I took them out after 5 minutes of running the car and two plugs were already soaked as you can see here











Given this and the fact that the car is in such rough shape and just dangerous to drive overall, I didn't even bother with it anymore... it's done it's time, now it's time for the scrapper

Drain the oil and coolant, start it up, throw a brick on the throttle, and let's see how long this sucker lasts.

USMCFieldMP said:

Drain the oil and coolant, start it up, throw a brick on the throttle, and let's see how long this sucker lasts.

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Ah, the smash for clunkers treatment. The neighbors will love it!

Ha, yea I thought about it but that would've REALLY pissed off my buddy's neighbors... after driving it around the block and smoking the entire street, one of the neighbors came out and said "hey, your headgasket is blown"

I smiled and laughed

Put the plugs back in and make sure what's left in the radiator is as clean as you can get it. Put in a double dose of radiator cleaner. Make sure you have a friend that will answer the phone and go for a LONG high speed run. Run it up and down hills as much as possible. You must save this car. If you fail, your friend will buy and ruin another car.

mohawk69 said:

Put the plugs back in and make sure what's left in the radiator is as clean as you can get it. Put in a double dose of radiator cleaner. Make sure you have a friend that will answer the phone and go for a LONG high speed run. Run it up and down hills as much as possible. You must save this car. If you fail, your friend will buy and ruin another car.

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Yea right, i'm not wasting my time anymore... the car is downright dangerous to drive considering everything else that's wrong with it. If he ruins his next car that's his problem, I frankly don't care... I can't fix stupid