Edit due to doing to many things at 1 time.

Bill

 

I'm going on what Bill has said. Are you using sythetic? that question has yet to be answered... can you pull the downpipe off the turbo and see if oil might be making it into the exhaust? Just to clarify is your coolant level dropping b/c of your radiator still leaking??? For some reason i thought that you fixed that, but don't remember.

 

I,m with Madvan I bet it is your turbo seals didn,t you just rebuild it? wet tail pipe and only smoking when you get on it makes sense to me but of course I could be wrong

 

Going for the WAG's.
Gotta start someplace.
Thinking about it, Bill is correct, in a sense. It's sending in fuel a bit earlier for a longer period of time due to the poppet being open quicker and longer.
Thats my thought on that.
But the smoke is def not fuel.


No Snyth. Motorcraft diesel oil.
I'm liking it.

I have a hairline crack that I've soldered. It seeps really slowly.

I overfilled rez and topped off the radiator.

My WAG is that it was too much backpressure on the system?

The intake seal generally fails. Just take off the turbo boot and see if there is play in the shaft by grabbing the end of the impeller and wiggling it, it shouldn't move much.

No fuel in coolant, no coolant in oil.

Hard to tell what is coming out of tailpipe really. Its wet and the tailpipe is staying wet. But its mixing with the soot and everything else that is in there, oil whatever else has went in there. I had oil come out tailpipe from the injector install. I'm sure some stayed in there waiting for some moisture to revive it.

I'll pull the DP tomorrow and check that. Good suggestion.
Coolant is dropping far faster than the hairline crack usually lets it.
I filled it up before I left for down south, i drove over 2k miles before it got low again. Replaced radiator cap on the way also, it wasn't working. Got one of those pressure release ones now.


Yea, Just rebuilt the turbo. Diff center shaft, all new bearings and seals.
I love the idea of it being the turbo, but I'm not thinking that simple seeing as its definitely not oil coming out the tail pipe, or fuel. I know what both of those smell like.








Okay, anyways, I hope I answered all the questions. Let me try and throw as much as I can on the fire here, see what we can cook up.


Started this morning. normal startup unburnt fuel smoke. White and smells like fuel.

Drove away, got smoke going. Didn't pay much attention.

drove for a bit, called Rick, told him to check thread for me. He mentioned pressurizing the system.

My thought on that is, if we go hypothetically here saying it is coolant.
Wont I Just be pushing coolant into some area of the motor? Granted, it will say there is a coolant leak, but it doesn't tell us where it is, cup or head gasket? Correct? Not dissin any idea's here. Just saying hypothetically.

Anyways, Got almost to where I was going, and it started smoking going down the road, It had only been doing it from a stop while the motor was lugged, or accelerating.

Parked truck and while idling, it was blowing out smoke. I went and checked the smoke (stuck my face in it) and took a wiff. Def not fuel, def not oil. Not blue smoke, white. Like unburnt fuel in cold motor.

Now, in a running temp motor, unburnt fuel will be black, correct? I know on my DD tune I can throw out a light light haze of unburnt fuel, but not much. I can see this under heavy acceleration, it will go from white to a grey.

Okay, shut it off, Posted on here on a break as you saw earlier, from my phone. What a pain. Anyways.

Got done working today. Started truck, no smoke at idle.
Moved truck around, no smoke.
but was just idling. It was smoking on idle earlier.

Turned it off, had coffee, left.
Smoked all down the road while driving and for another few miles.
Stopped for ice cream. Gotta have ice cream after work, Just so yummy, and only a dolla at mic d's.


Smoked from start, but didn't smoke while driving at that point. Had some smoke while slowing down for stop sign. Was in gear, no throttle just little puffs. Was clean out of the tail pipe going down the road, and was that way the rest of the trip.

18-20% DC with 1 Lb of boost, both normal for 55.
200-205 on temp.

Got home, didn't smoke at idle.

I have no power loss, no miss, no erratic idle.
Everything seems to be running perfectly fine. Turbo spools great, like normal.

Thats why I'm very confused over this whole deal.

For the first while it was doing this, only smoke over 40% dc

today, it didn't care for a while, but then on the way home when it stopped smoking, it would only smoke above 40% dc again.


If I understand correctly, There is coolant around the injector cups? correct?
So if an injector cup some how manages to come loose, coolant will get into cylinder?
That is what I was thinking injector cups.


Now to top it with some sorta cherry, if its a head gasket, which I wont rule out. How do we figure out which side?

Now, if this will post.
Which it hasn't for the last 3 attempts
fail fail fail
IBserv. Grrrrr.

 

What does the oil level look like? If its oil out the turbo oil will be low by now for sure.

Cracked cup will put fuel in coolant and after shut down (fuel pressure bleeds off) it will put some coolant in the fuel to be burned.

let me think some more and I will post more ideas later

 

Without the leak in the rad ,If you pressurize the cooling system & have a leak, Cup or gasket , pressure will drop. You can do the same thing with the fuel system, fuel will end up in the coolant (cups) A cylinder leak down test can tell if it is a gasket . If you are burning coolant ,you shouldn't have any trouble smelling it . cylinder leak down will most likely show 2 cylinders next to each other(where most failures occur )with low compression. If you pressurize the cylinders one at a time(valves closed ) ,& have a bad head gasket , air will show up in the coolant res unless it is leaking into the adjacent cyl...

 

I read that an injector with a cracked nozzle (in one case anyway) could cause white smoke. The engine hydro locked soon after the failure. Not sure what a good test for that would be. If there is coolant getting into the exhaust that kinda rules that possibility out. But since the cooling system isn't holding pressure (leak) I thought I'd throw it out there.

 

Oil was first thing I checked Tim. It was good. No spots in it or anything like that. I'll check it again tomorrow for sure.

Well, if it is cups. I should just replace them all anyways. So, no worries there.


Honestly though, the smoke doesn't really smell like coolant either.
Its def not oil or a fuel smell though.

To bad I don't have any tools to do the leak down Rick. =\

I don't even have a vacuum pump to do some sorta mock up.

 

Hey........

 

This may sound odd. But *****, if your tail pipe is straight pipe. I noticed that my pipe will drip water, why I don't know, my collant level stays consistant, but I will get condensation in my pipe and I can blow what looks to be a dark gray smoke. But mine only blows dark gray smoke on start up (My engine it really cold blooded) and the water, is condensation (My pipe hangs low enough it gets alot of air coverage) so yeah thats just some info I have.

 

If it was a nozzle, there would be tons of white smoke ALL THE TIME as the cylinder gets flooded with fuel. It would be quite noticeable and would not be intermittant.

 

As of now your cooling system is pressureless.
If you had a failure in the oil or fuel it would showup in the coolant.
This does not rule out that you could be sending cly pressure into the system
and dont see it do to it bleeds it off.

Iam really leaning on possible turbo oil leak as it seems you need heat before you start to see smoke. The rest of the time its dumping into the exhaust as a liquid. Just my possible wag.

I would carry a gal or 2 of oil in the truck at all times until this is sorted out.

Bill

 

I can agree with this a bit. But, It smokes when its cold as well.

Not really sure how a rebuilt turbo can leak though.

I'm going to pull the DP and see if fluid comes out as travis suggested.

And i'ma drain down the coolant to where its normally at and see if it changes anything also.

My crack is small enough the system can build pressure, because it does use the resiviour bottle. I just have that a bit over filled, so I'm thinking it cannot get the excess pressure out of the system, so its going to another weak spot.

 

I would check that turbo first, had the same issue, and the center section of my turbo was shot, but it still ran good, just wierd smoke issues.

 

Is there a right up that helps someone like me walk through that or is that self axplanitory?