Smoking Pipes

[Skuzzrat]

I just finished putting my bike back together after replacing the gaskets and o-rings in the engine and when I started my bike up the exhaust started smoking right around the exhaust flanges. Should I be worried? I don't remember it smoking whatsoever when I bought the bike last year. This is the second time I "finished" my bike, the first time I didn't get into my engine, doing mostly cosmetic work, however I did put new exhaust gaskets in and it smoked then too. This time I repainted the exhaust and again replaced the exhaust gaskets with the crush type ones. The engine looked good to my completely inexperienced eyes when it was apart so I'm not shure if I should be freaking out or not. I have read that new paint tends to smoke, but i smoked the last time too so I'm not sure if that's it. The other reason why I'm nervous is the first time I atempted to put my exhaust back on I didn't realize the old gaskets were still in and I ended up stripping the bolts so now I'm nervous to over-torque them.

 

[Scruffy]

Smell the smoke. If it doesn't smell like exhaust it is just the paint burning off the pipe ends. Header paint smokes like mad. I use BBQ paint for black pipes, holds up better. And crush gaskets will leak for the first couple heat cycles until you retighten the flange bolts. I prefer the Harley style tapered gaskets, a bit pricey but worth it, K&L sells them, your local stealership should have their catalog.

You can always have the flange bolt holes drilled and tapped for one step bigger bolts. Pain in the neck but takes away an extra headache.

Nice looking ride.

 

[hillsy]

Smell the smoke.

That's not a very good idea. Depending on what type of paint you've used it can be quite dangerous to inhale the fumes.

Exhaust paint can smoke quite a lot as it's curing, but it also might be you got oil / grease on the pipes when you re-assembled the bike (it doesn't take much).

I bet it clears up after a few rides

 

[Skuzzrat]

Thanks for the advice, much appreciated, I'll do that first thing tomorrow. I wouldn't be as nervous if I knew a little history on the bike and of course had any experience with bikes.

 

[rockcitycafe]

could also be oil residue burning off the head

 

[Skuzzrat]

It didn't smell like oil but it's possible. In all honesty I've been reading up on what might be causing it and as long as it goes away in the next couple of days I'll know it was nothing, but I figured getting some advice from experienced people wouldn't hurt and would probably teach me something.

 

[djelliott]

Oh, I thought this thread was about a totally different topic.

 

[loudest143]

I added muffler wrap and painted it over the summer. I used the apporpriate exhaust wrap paint. I also installed new exhaust header gaskets just like you did.

I had smoke curling out of the junction where the header inserts into the head where the new crush gaskets are. This went away after two days, and a retorquing of the header bolts.

The exhaust on the other hand smoked and smelled awful for a couple of weeks. It was the paint and the wrap 'curing', as it was explained to me, and my local buddies told me not to worry, it's normal.

I'm not an expert, but I'm just sharing my experience.

loudest143

 

[Big R]

Yeah, muffler wrap smokes like crazy. I put black wrap on my Suzuki and the appropriate black paint on over top of that. Fired up the bike and let it run with a fan blowing on it and the garage door open like I was told - thought that took care of it. Hell no! Took it to work the next day and a buddy thought my bike was gonna burn to the ground!

 

[Skuzzrat]

Thanks for the boost of confidence from everyone.