88 smoky max

Hello,

I just acquired a 88 2.0l 5 speed sport longbox MM. 168,000 on it. I need some help on some issues since i have never worked on these trucks. The first issue is that this lil truck smokes when it starts to warm up but only in little spurts.... at idle it doesnt smoke at all. The previous owner said it didnt start smoking until his son did a oil change and put 5w-30 in it. I read online that your supposed to use 20w-30/40/50 or 10w-30/40/50 unless its a real cold winter. So my question is ... is that the smoking issue or am i looking at new rings and valve seals? No oil in the water and no water in the oil so i dont see it as a bad head or gasket.

The other issue with this truck is that the clutch works great for about 15 minutes then it stops working. Is it hydraulic or cable? If cable, is it adjustable to get a few more miles out of it to get it to my place?

One last thing is the previous owner included a weber carb for it and i read that it is supposed to give you a few more horses and better fuel ecomony i know thats a oxymoron but thats what i read. So is it advisable to install this carb and have it tuned? The truck has the original carb on right now and several hoses plugged off so that scares me.

Thanks in advance.

how good is the oil first off? i would think if it had the right oil it would help the engine and maybe the smoke problem aswell. plus it wouldnt hurt if you did change out the gaskets. for your clutch problem, it sounds like it could be that that hydraulic is on its last leg.

then again you could have carbon build-up

After i did a complete oil change and put in the proper weight oil and then it blew the rest out of the exhaust ... it hasnt smoked again. Still have some blow by so i know im looking at a complete tear down and rebuild in the future. But for now its the carb acting up and have to fix it first.