a few thoughts:

a compression test will definitely indicate worn rings. a quick and dirty
way is to use a vacuum gauage to see if engine pulls a decent vacuum - if
so, rings are ok. a periodic drop in vacumm might indicate just one or two
bad cylinders, but must eliminate valves as cause.

classic oil smoke is bluish.

van can't run right with badly fouled plugs. reading fouled plugs can help
verify compression and other tests.

is it possible there is too much motor oil in the van? or perhaps too high
an oil level due to unburned gas getting in the oil?

dan

On Sat, 26 Jun 2004 14:37:41 -0500, Blake Thornton <blake@MATH.WUSTL.EDU>
wrote:

>I am afraid that my 84 might need some serious engine work.  Here are the
>symptoms:
>
>- When I start up the van, it blows a lot of grey smoke initially.  Quite
>a lot and it keeps getting worse.  After the van is warmed up, the van
>runs alright.
>
>- I just changed my spark plugs.  3 of the 4 were pretty oily.  I had an
>exhaust leak and took off the forward most exhaust pipe.  The pipe was
>pretty oily and black.
>
>- Lately, my vans wants to stall out when cold, which leads me to needing
>to keeping my foot on the pedal when I am driving.  This seems to go away
>when the van gets warmed up.
>
>I am thinking that my rings are probably shot.  My engine has 160,000
>miles on it (with probably around 20K on new head gaskets).  What are my
>options?  I am thinking that I can probably just run this engine for a
>while longer (assuming I pass emmissions) and see about finding a used
>engine or something soon.
>
>Thanks for any input you can offer!!
>Blake
>84 Westy
>St Louis