Is this a blown head gasket?

[jlatenight]

ok, I guess I'll do it again and follow everyone's tips. Much appreciated. I'll report back on what happens. Cheers!

 

[jlatenight]

So I did the gasket again and I made sure I cleaned the surfaces really well. I torqued it down evenly too. I noticed one of the two valve caps was missing, which would explain why it ran, but sounded horrible. Now, it runs great and sounds great, but it STILL blows white smoke. It comes and goes while it's running, and I notice it always happens when I put it to full throttle, and when I engage the blades, but comes and goes while I'm mowing. I did the head gasket twice, so I'm going to eliminate that as a possibility, so now I'm wondering if it's the piston rings? It's some kind of blow-by, right? Could it be the carb is gummed up and too much fuel is going through? I'm going to see if I can rig up a cylinder pressure test to see if it holds pressure. Any other suggestions?

 

[slomo]

1.Oil level EXACTLY on the full mark or slightly below?
2.Is this on a rider? Tires aired to proper specs? Trying to get an accurate oil level check here.
3.Compression and leak down on oily cylinder should be looked at.
4.Didn't mention anything about lapping the head gasket areas.
5.Could be rings. Do #3 and find out.
6.A rich carb would blow black smoke. You said white which normally is coolant. Gray/blue is oil burning.

7.Bock and cooling fins clean? Might of caused this entire thing. Lost valve stem cap and leaking head gasket. Overheats strike again.

 

[Fish]

Run it a while and keep an eye on the oil level, it takes a while sometimes to burn off excess oil after having an engine off and upside down.

 

[sgkent]

Now if you could control the timing of the smoke maybe you could hire yourself out to sky write while mowing yards........