No smoke and doesn't smell like the carb is rich exhaust muffler pipe is black. I ran it out on the road for about 3 miles and pulled plug and it looked pretty good. Like a lot of guys my mule idles a lot and puttering around the yard a lot so not a lot of wide open throttle. My friend has a mule just like mine and it does same thing. When I bought the mule used it had a valve ticking but ran fine. I ran the mule like this for probably a yr or so and never fouled a plug. Took it to a dealer and they adjusted the valves and that is when the plug fouling began. Have had dealer re-adjust since then and same thing. I went in and checked valves myself they were about .002 and I loosened them up to .005 and am going to see if that helps before I do the carb cleaning adjusting. Thanks for your replys.