95 540I smoking worse

[rick]

Winfred (or anyone).....checking in....my car 'was' blowing a puff of smoke on engine start up. The rear plugs (on one each side) were black. I changed the plugs on my 95' 540 w/88K miles and took it on a trip. Now it is idling rough and will blow a huge puff of smoke when I accelerate. It has NEVER used a drop of oil and now is about 1 qt low after the 400 mile trip. Checked the new plugs and the 2 in the back are black....the front 6 are clean. Are these symptoms of the Positive Crankcase Ventilation thingy....or what?? Last check before I order a new PCV plate and change it out. Or should I just take it to the dealer in case something else is wrong?? Winfred seemed to have went through this before.
Thanks guys.
Rick in Ohio

[winfred]

trust me it's the pcv plate, think of it like this your rear two plugs are the closest to the oil leak into the intake and are catching most if not all of the oli from the ruptured diaphram, we had one e38 740 that closed down 4 lanes of traffic when the plate blew when i flogged it out of the lot (i was having too much fun) from the smoke

[winfred]

i just thought of something else, sometimes a cat can clog and produce too much backpressure and blow the pcv plate, get a muffler shop to do a back pressure test on the cats if you want to make sure it's ok (or get a gauge and do it your self)

[Rick]

Winfred....thanks for the reassurance! Per your reply I ordered the Pos Crank Vent plate, gasket, new gaskets for the intake, and some other gasket that 'Patrick' from BMA said I needed. Also ordered the valve cover gaskets as I had a little oil laying in there too.
Parts will be here Tuesday......I'll let you know if it cures the problem. If it doesn't.....I'll be coming over for a visit....smile.
Rick