Frankenmotor had a mystery oil leak plus some blue smoke. (Leak is an understatement...it was pissing everywhere.) I replaced the valve cover gaskets and the rear oil separator plate now the leak is gone but now it is smoking even worse. It gets better when it warms up but it's still present. Motor sounds healthy except for a tick that sounds like a stuck HLA.

 

Any ideas?

Smoke from under the hood or smoke from the tail pipe?

 

Is the PCV valve clear? How about the hoses that go into the block? What about the breather hoses that run from the valve covers to the intake tube?

Tail pipe

Blue smoke from the tail pipe is usually bad rings or valve stem seals.

 

Excessive oil consumption can be caused by a clogged pcv valve or breather system. A clogged PCV valve causes high crankcase pressure, which can force oil out through seals and cause leaks. With large leaks being repaired, this higher pressure has fewer places to escape, and will cause new leaks, but in the mean time it will just force it's way past the rings into the cylinder and be burned off with combustion.

The breather system is the first thing I would check. Next would be a leak down test to check for ring/cylinder wall wear.

You can also check spark plugs for oil fouling to determine if the problem is uniform for all cylinders or limited to one or two.

PCV was stuck. Cleaned it out and the smoke screen is gone. Wish they were all this easy.