The "paper trick" is nothing more than taking a sheet of paper and placing it over the oil inlet neck while the car is running to see if the paper gets blown up and away or sucked into the filler neck. It is COMPLETELY unscientific. And COMPLETELY useless as a diagnostic tool unless you can figure out how to make "Calibrated" paper. I was pretty shocked he even tried to pull that. But as you know, many shops see someone come in that knows nothing about their cars, and whammo, there's a large repair job that has to be done or you stand the chance of crashing and dying on your way home from the shop.

Paul

 

Glad to know your engine is in overall good health! Hopefully the oil smoke was just the residual oil left in the intake.
Your restoration journey sounds very similar to mine. Nice to see someone else bringing one of these nice older vehicles back from "the brink".
I bought a higher mileage (225k) SC430 because the price was right and the body / frame were immaculate. Like your GS, the maintenance history on my SC was suspect.
I was able to get all issues addressed (knock sensors, ACIS solenoid, battery, starter, struts, etc.) but one of the hardest tasks was chasing all of the oil leaks away.
I'll pass my experience in getting ALL of the leaks stopped...
Chasing one thing at a time, I replaced the high pressure power steering hose, the valve cover gaskets / spark plug tube seals, the oil filter housing seal, the oil pressure sensor, and installed a genuine Toyota PCV valve (PO had installed junk aftermarket). All of these things, combined, helped immensely but I still had drips at the front and back of the engine soooo...
I bit the bullet and raised the engine, lowered the subframe, and pulled the upper and lower oil pans for resealing. While into it I pulled the transmission, giving me access to the rear crankshaft seal plate. I removed the plate and replaced the crankshaft seal AND the o-ring that lives behind the plate. I feel that this o-ring was the actual culprit of the rear leak. I was very hard and flat. While into it I replace the torque converter with a low mileage unit (aftermarket "new" seemed like junk) and replaced the torque converter shaft seal. I then replaced the front crankshaft oil seal. I went ahead and replaced the oil pump (with genuine Toyota) as well since I was into it that far. When ordering the oil pump I saw that it, too, had an o-ring that lives behind it so I ordered it when I ordered the pump. When I took the pump off this o-ring was every bit as hard, flat, and brittle as the rear and it was obvious that this is where my front oil leak had actually been coming from.
Having done all that (and resealing the transmission oil pan) I'm happy to say that I have clean, dry engine on no oil spots on my garage floor!
The pic below shows the o-ring I mention (this pic is the backside of the oil pump). IF you get to the point that you're going to replace the front, rear, or both crankshaft seals then I HIGHLY recommend you replace the o-ring on either end!
Good luck with your project!

 

Ahhh. My kingdom for a garage where I could actually work on things. Unfortunately, I live in a 168 Unit Condominium complex in SoCal where jobs taking a day or more must be performed on the street. A few hours and I can get by in the far back corner of the Parking Lot without too much hassle from the HOA. Congrats. Sounds like your maintenance is basically done for another 100k miles.😁👍

Paul

 

Thanks! I sure hope it'll be good for quite some time. I've spent the last several months getting it all sorted.
Sorry to hear about your lack of a repair space. I've heard SoCal has DIY garage space. Not sure how affordable or practical but maybe an option.

 

OK. I think it's time to call it. The cause of the billowing smoke WAS a bad PCV Valve.

I tried to upload a video a few weeks back showing how bad the smoke was. When I say "billowing ", I meant billowing. I thought for sure my engine had something seriously wrong with it. Now, she is back to normal. For that I am extremely Thankful.

How did I reach that conclusion? Well. I watched all kinds of videos from the University of YouTube. All of them said the same thing. Time to dump the car. But me being me, I wanted to know what had actually failed. And when I ran my bore scope inside the intake, and saw oil literally standing inside the intake, the only thing I could come up with was the oil had to be coming through the PCV Valve. So I changed it out with a new factory one.

Did that fix it? Yes and no. Not right away. There was still so much oil in the intake that it took weeks for the smoke to FINALLY go away. But it has gone away. And I am seriously happy about it.

What did I learn from all of this? A lot actually. Rereading this thread and you see all of the efforts I went through to identify what the ACTUAL cause was. And in the end, it simply being the PCV Valve is still quite surprising. But I learned about the different 3UZ-FE Engine configurations, I learned more about compression and leak down testing. I learned about how the PCV system actually works and why we have them. I learned about carbon build up and the effects it can have on the normal operation of the engine. And about valve stem seals.

Quite the education. What else did I learn? I learned that a $12.00 parts failure can mimic what seems to be a catastrophic failure.

I hope others can learn from this adventure. And to remember to change the PCV Valve at about 50k miles whether it needs it or not. Cheap protection for our wonderful cars. Thanks for following along on this journey. Time to move on. 😁

Paul

 

I am glad all is well Paul! Out of curiosity, when you removed the old pcv valve and shook it did you hear it rattle?

 

Yes it did rattle when I shook it.

BEFORE the smoke issue started I even cleaned the old one with MAF Cleaner thinking it would not damage any internal seals. The fact that it rattled made me doubt that the PCV Valve was what was actually causing the smoking issue. But, I had a new one sitting in the package that I bought for the SC so I said why not. And even though I didn't really believe that the PCV Valve was actually the problem, I'm obviously thrilled to be wrong in this case. 😁

Paul

 

Hello Paul

. I'm glad you find the issue without any serious problems. Can you share us those kind of videos?
I want to know too for whats going on inside this engine .
Thank you!

I still not finished mine.... at the moment waiting the coolant bypass parts ,because the leak.
I took off the mainfold again

today so quickly and find a missing bolts beside the starter motor. Those steel pipe attachments came out from the aluminium parts so easily..

 

I'm sorry Pushi. I have tried a couple of ways but the app says it is not a recognizable format. I'll see what I can do with it later.

Paul

 

Well, I for one would hire you as my mechanic. I will read the rest of this thread for any answers. I hope you came to a decision you feel is correct. Yes, if my son or daughter were ready for college I would happily pay for them to go to the best mechanic schools out there. “Master” anything does not exist these days.

 

I truely wish that things weren't this way in any of the trades. Trying to find a good repair technician is nigh impossible any more. And I am sorry to say when a woman comes in, rather than being truthful, they just see someone they can take advantage of. This forum is one of the best sources of info for our cars you will find anywhere. I try to educate others with what I learn along they way as do many others. And I sincerely hope you get your heavy steering issue worked out soon. I think you have received some good advice. But as always, Trust but verify to protect yourself from someone that may not have your best interests at heart. 😁 And I still believe YouTube is one of the best places to go to do research when your just not sure.

Paul