Black smoke on startup

Why would my Defender TD5 produce a cloud of black smoke on startup?

lt's been doing this recently, generally when the engine is still warm rather than on cold starts, when it doesn't do it.

l am guessing it's a sign something is not right, but what? lnjectors, MAF ? lt's done 141,000 miles

Sounds like you're ahead of me. I'm still only getting occasional pale grey smoke on startup. I'm looking forward to a richer palette of colours in due course as the engine ages.

On mine the smoke seems to be more likely in Wales than when I'm in Leicester. I've been wondering why. Wales is damper, but it's happened even in really dry periods in the summer. My property in Wales is nearly 1000 ft higher than Leicester, so I wondered whether the slight difference in atmospheric pressure is making a difference to the smoke. Of course the turbo's supposed to boost the inlet pressure but mine's smokier when it has a dirty air filter. So maybe it's running a bit richer where the air is thinner.

I'm not going to worry too much about it. It still performs well, and is pretty smooth for a 16 year old diesel, and will still power me to well past the UK's speed limits if I were to let it. It even passes the MOT smoke test.

Yes mine still runs great and fuel economy hasn't changed.
LR recommend an injector service after 100,000 miles but none of my local LR specialists want to do it, claiming that removing injectors unless it's absolutely necessary is asking for trouble.

You could always put a bottle of stanadyne fuel system treatment in the tank, it’s pretty cheap and is designed for unit injectors

Thank you for the suggestion.

l'll give that a try, nothing to lose.

lightning said:

Thank you for the suggestion.

l'll give that a try, nothing to lose.

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Other than that, check your waste gate is moving freely, and your air filter isn't full of dust

lightning said:

Yes mine still runs great and fuel economy hasn't changed.
LR recommend an injector service after 100,000 miles but none of my local LR specialists want to do it, claiming that removing injectors unless it's absolutely necessary is asking for trouble.

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Having done the injector washers and seals myself, I would say it is doable but lots of patience is needed!

I used a lot of the different Wynns treatments that are available and these seemed to help a lot with smoke. They sell one to reduce smoke that is poured directly into your engine.

I have the same problem 2005 td5 low miles but also get a puff when l excelerat or up hill under load

I see you can get Stanadyne fuel additives in 200 litre drums. My God that's a lot of additive. You could more or less run the engine entirely on additive if you were rich enough.

To update this thread.

The Defender had to go in for a new exhaust manifold as it had sheared one of the bolts.

While it was in l had them replace the injector seals because it's done 143,000 miles and they've never been touched.

Since that was done the smoke has disappeared. l wouldn't think a bad injector seal could make smoke on startup unless it was somehow leaking a bit of diesel into the combustion chamber.

The engine oil level never went up though.

Anyhow it's okay now.

lightning said:

To update this thread.

The Defender had to go in for a new exhaust manifold as it had sheared one of the bolts.

While it was in l had them replace the injector seals because it's done 143,000 miles and they've never been touched.

Since that was done the smoke has disappeared. l wouldn't think a bad injector seal could make smoke on startup unless it was somehow leaking a bit of diesel into the combustion chamber.

The engine oil level never went up though.

Anyhow it's okay now.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the update one more job on my list I will soon be living solely to maintain a defender