E39 - Smoke from heater vents

[stellacheersmate]

Had a lot of smoke come out of the heater vents on 2 seperate occasions today. Done a little digging and it seems that cam cover gaskets can leak near the manifold burning oil, and generating smoke. Is there a quick visual way to confirm this or will I need to remove all the panels to check for leaks?

TIA

[4rephill]

Was it definitely smoke? (i.e smelt like something burning).

The reason I ask is because on occasions I've had what can only be described as "fog" being blown into the cabin through the air vents, having been generated by the atmospheric conditions outside the car and the air conditioning operating. the first time it happened it scared the life out of Me as I thought the car has caught fire but then I realized I couldn't smell any burning.

[Pickled Piper]

Oil smoke has a distinctive and strong smell.

pp

[to3m]

I've got an E46 with climate control and for the past couple of years, when it's started to get cold outside, and the aircon starts to have to heat the air rather than cool it, the heater has produced a bit of smoke once it's first got going. (I don't know if it would count as a "lot", but what's a "lot", when it comes out of the dashboard?! It's quite visible, you can smell it, and it lasts for a second or two.)

Smells like something slightly burnt, in my case, nothing specific, but not especially pungent. I'm hoping it's just dust. Anyway, whilst worrying the first couple of times, it doesn't seem to have caused any problems. On the opposite note, the car has always smelt a little odd when the aircon first has to run cold in spring, so I'm assuming this is just more of the same, due to some part of the system not getting a proper workout for a few months.

Then again, I'm no mechanic...

[Fox-]

Easy - it's your cam cover gasket. It's easy to spot as well - the smell is oil burning off as it drips out of the cam cover and onto one of the exhuast manifolds. Look at the side of the engine near the back.

[LocoBlade]

Sounds like its a common issue with the E39 but it's definitely smoke and not white dust, as there's a few threads on babybmw about 1 series air con evapourators corroding which causes a white dust to be blown through the air vents.

[stellacheersmate]

Fox- said:

Easy - it's your cam cover gasket. It's easy to spot as well - the smell is oil burning off as it drips out of the cam cover and onto one of the exhuast manifolds. Look at the side of the engine near the back.

Cheers Fox, nothing visible form a visual inspection. Might as well spend some time looking properly the weekend.