Exhaust Smoke Video - Need Help Diagnosing

[Millietant]

If going to take the head off and send it to someone to get the work done, why not get it gas flowed too while they're at it, for a bit extra performance?

[86FJNJ]

Not sure what route I'll take yet although strongly leaning towards trying to ride it a little and see how it is although with 20yo tires need to be careful. What is gas flowed?

[fj1289]

"Gas flowed" is English for American "ported".

A ported head with oversized valves really wakes up the FJ!

 

[Pat Conlon]

I understand if the tires are rotten you can maybe check them for cracks in sidewall  they might be okay, but with hard rubber. I would try to ride it with the tires if they look okay and take it easy.

.....strongly leaning towards trying to ride it a little and see how it is although with 20yo tires need to be careful.

Riding an FJ with rock hard tires is a hoot, right Dan? LOL
What could go wrong? Dunno, maybe like, turning a corner?

[fj1289]

With all I've heard so far - I'd definitely invest in a set of tires - this is definitely a bike worth sitting out!

[Pat Conlon]

Story Time:
I found a pristine low mileage white '89 in Wisconsin that came with rock hard 20+ year old tires. Dan (aka giantkiller) picked up and held the bike for me until I could fly out from Arizona. (Thanks again amigo)  Dan laughed when he told me, "Hey Pat, I took your bike out for a ride and I knew the tires were old but...I thought you had a slipping clutch, I would roll on the throttle and the engine would rev up madly....it wasn't your clutch, it was the hard old back tire spinning..."

[fj1289]

With all I've heard so far - I'd definitely invest in a set of tires - this is definitely a bike worth sitting out!

Crap - definitely a bike worth SORTING out.  Worthy of a set of new tires!

[Old Rider]

If you dont want to use money buying new tires and then discover that engine needs a rebuild and the cost of that.
You can load the engine by doing some burnouts that will get pressure behind the rings and free them if they are stuck.
But first i would buy a snakecamera and inspect . You can remove the headerpipes and use the snake camera in there to .if it is a lot of oil on the valves it may be because of dried hard valvestemseals. Same on the intakevalves you can open throttle and stick the snakecamera thru the carbs all the way down in the valve intakes and look for oil.
And of course look inside the bores how it looks there .

And if you used marvel mystery oil in the bores change to new oil.
You can pull the head to change the seals,but be prepared that you then will need a new headgasket and also a new
basegasket and you will then have to take the cylinders off and by doing this job you will need new pistonrings and
if lucky you get away with only honing the bores.By taking the head off it will also fall loads of dirt and rust
down in the engine/bores. So taking the head off will be almost the same as doing a top end engine rebuild.

So try to inspect the valve seals first maybe that is only thing you need to replace.

[Millietant]

"Gas flowed" is English for American "ported".

A ported head with oversized valves really wakes up the FJ!

 

Yep, the vagaries of how the English language has developed in far-away lands    - for "gas-flowed", in the USA read "ported"