Gen 2 problems

[ANDYW]

G'day,
I was wondering if anyone can help me with a couple of questions. I currently own a 89 Camry LE V-6 with approximately 170,000 km. It has been an excellent car, but it has developed some problems in the last year, or so: 1)Excessive oil consumption (1 litre/ 1000 km) coupled with blue smoke at cold
start-up. 2)Clunking from the rear when the car is driven on rough roads (sounds like the
noise is coming from the tops of the struts). 3) Engine clunking during on/off throttle (the upper engine mounts look O.K). Also, I'm considering an 88 Camry AWD 5 spd. and was wondering if there is any problem in the driveline of these vehicles that I should be aware of.

[SpectraBlueCam]

Welcome to the forum. The blue smoke is definitely a sign of oil consumption, but 1L per 1000km is quite bad. You're looking at major dough to fix something like that. I've been told that means bad valve seals or maybe gaskets need changing. There are engine oil additives that give a band-aid solution to the problem.

As for the clunking, the noise could be transmitted from the bottom, where all the linkages are. If it comes from the top, it probably means that your car is bottoming out and the strut cartrige is hitting up against the top. But the bump stops would probably stop that. I'd suggest getting those problems checked out if you have some dough to spare. Otherwise, it would be too big of a deal. Just have to keep adding oil.

[4RunnerGusto]

Regarding the clunking in the rear, this problem was also encountered on both my 88 and 94 camry. The remedy was replacing the rubber bushings in the U brackets that mount the rear stabilizer bars to the frame/body. They cost approx. $15 US about 3 years ago. About 2 hours work for both cars, no noise since.