MASSIVE smoking when cold

rings rings rings rings. yes four of them. or is there eight(2 per cylinder)?

guess you could say 12 if you count the oil ring

Almost all of the posts, emails, and phone calls I get with smoke on startup conditon turned out to be valve seals, even extreme cases. Piston rings once they stick they usually stay stuck, a little water in the intake or sea foam usually doesn't do much good.

There are ways to more accuratly diagnose this problem (wow, thats an idea). If the valve seals are that far shot you should clearly see lots of burn oil carbon deposits on the back of the intake valves. Remove the intake manifold shine a flash light on the back of the valves and you'll probably have your answer right there.

The other way is to do a dry and wet, leak down and compression check, if compression is higher on the wet, or leakage is lower on the wet then its the rings.

After that you should be 98% sure which it is. :-D

lol my truck smoked so bad this winter when I actually drove it to work (was snowing and didn't wanna drive the caddy) I started it up and was adjustong the carb. My boss said he had never seen anyone do a burn out standing in front of the truck with the hood up....lol