Mystery Solved. Thanks for all the great ideas and suggestons for my
smoking, and briefly overheating Tiger. It turns out that the cause is
definitely a head gasket, probably on the left side. A radiator shop
checked the coolant in the header tank today and, sure enough, they
found exhaust gasses (= blown head gasket). I should have had this done
first.
As a side benefit to my soon to be new head gaskets, the current 289
heads (10:5 - 11:0 compression) will come off and be replaced by 302
heads with lower compression. The motor has tended to ping ever since it
went in the Tiger, and got worse after California "premium" gas dropped
from 92 to 91 octane, so this is something that needs to be done anyway.
Since this is beyond my current ability to do it myself, and my time to
learn how to do it, I'm having the work done for me.
Thanks again for all the help and tips from a whole bunch of you out there!
Steve Sage
|