After trying everthing I could to make the Elan engine stop smoking I’ve admitted that the mechanic I used to rebuild the engine didn’t know what he was doing. To fix things, I’ve pulled the engine and will be sending it out to one of the local specialists.
Before you ask who did the rebuild last time, it was me.
There is an old saying in the legal profession: “A lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client”. I don’t know what that has to do with pulling engines, but it seemed relevant somehow. Come to think of it, it has no relevance whatsoever.
BTW, I spent a summer in high school dropping a VW Bug engine and restoring it. That wasn’t so hard, but then compared to an Elan a Bug engine is like a gerbil wheel.