White smoke from left two exhausts only

[hlover]

Hey guys,

I just bought a 1981 honda cb750 about two weeks ago. I had a gas issue and used dry gas to get some of the water out of the system, then I ran out of gas and probably gunked up my carbs a little. This seemed to work, however now I am getting large amounts of white smoke out of the left two exhaust pipes...Is this because the carb bowls need to be cleaned? is this normal? (sorry motorcycle novie)

Problem #2:  It appears that I may be leaking a small amount of oil right but the clutch/bottom of the engine nearest to the exhaust. is this serious/could this be related to my exhaust problem? When my bike gets warmed up it burns off this little bit of oil that drips onto the exhaust. Any ideas??

Thanks in advance

Anson K.

[mitchberry]

hey...

 no it's not normal, no it shouldn't do that..

 the carbs on any 1981 bike probably need to be cleaned just for the sake of doing so.. it's 29 years old and has probably never been done, but if you're new to it, i'd ask some advice before digging into them.. there are ways to go about it to where you don't completely jack up your alignments when you put them back together / can get them back within a decent tolerance that's good enough to ride it to the nearest bike shop to get them fully adjusted when you DO put them back together etc etc..

 anyway,
white to bluish smoke billowing out of cylinders usually means one of a few things..

1. water
2. oil

in other words, it may have a leaky head gasket on the left side which is causing oil to spill into the cylinders and is burning off (not good for it)

You mentioned that you had to get water out of it... how much water was in it? and did you start it before you tried to get all the water out of it?  

there was probably water sitting in the bowls and lines that has to burn off...  idk.. hard to say without seeing it.

if there was nearly enough water in the system to produce that kind of smoke, i would think that you'd need to do more than just clean the carbs though... everything the water has been sitting in over the years is without a doubt corroded to hell including the cylinders.. but we're talking a cup or so of water to make it smoke profusely.. it would also run like hell...

so given that, i'm going to go with the bad head gasket...