Expy smoking from engine bay

[Deltantor]

Hi, I bought a 1999 Ford Expedition XLT with the 4.6l motor recently that has 113,000 miles. Absolutely loving it, but during the past couple of thousand of miles it has been burning oil pretty bad (2 quarts/500 miles). I don't notice anything out of the ordinary from the tailpipe, just smells like exhaust. What I do have is a good bit of smoke coming from the engine bay, specifically the passenger side. Under the vehicle I see a bit of oil, especially towards the passenger side. You can really smell the smoke with the drivers or passengers side windows down while driving and when standing outside of the vehicle. Not that much is dripping onto the ground when parked, something like...a tablespoon or so. This started happening after doing an oil change and switching to 5w30 mobil 1 synthetic.

Haven't noticed any other issues like loss of power or oil in coolant or coolant in oil. Just trying to figure out where to start looking so we can get this baby fixed and running 100%.

 

[stamp11127]

Standard practice for finding leaks is to clean the engine with a cleaning agent. I use Gunk or the steam cleaner at work. Once it is clean then look for the leak after driving it for a few miles.
First guess would be the valve cover gaskets.

 

[hwy73]

1999 4.6 had issues with the head gasket sealing on the rear pasenger side of the engine, causing an oil leak. Doesn't affect performance, but the oil drips onto the exhaust and smokes, especially after shutdown. Mine was done twice, once under original warranty and once under extended warranty so it cost me $100. Now at 180,000 it is starting to leak again.

 

[oblivion]

mines doing it too, looks like its the valve cover thats leaking but I sure hope its not the head. thats not cheap out of warrenty.

 

[capitlj]

Likely a valve cover gasket. If you can't see it after cleaning you can get a uv dye kit for like $30 and then it glows under uv light kinda like a white t shirt under a black light.

 

[Yudaman]

1999 4.6 had issues with the head gasket sealing on the rear pasenger side of the engine, causing an oil leak.

This ^^^

Had one do the same thing.

Sorry for the bad news...