brainiacs required for this one.white smoke

al-one-arm · Sep 28, 2008

hi all
a friend of mine has got a lowly 51 plate 2000 petrol (fix or repair daily)mondeo estate.
apparantly everything works and drives perfect, except this confusing problem.
he cannot get it through an mot.
for an mot sniff test, you have to run the engine at 2500rpm for 30 secs.
after approx 24 secs the revs start fluctuating between 1500 and 5000rpm
and white smoke billows out the exhaust.
switch off the car, restart, no smoke(not even a little puff to clear out), car runs and drives perfect.drives at 2500rpm no smoke no losses of water,oil,brake fluid, etc,
ford garage says needs new engine, but they have not even got the test equip for diagnosis, taken it to electronic tuning specialists in chard, cant find any fault registered.
any suggestions from you experts(apart from scrap it)

ramon.alban · Sep 28, 2008

Hello Al, Petrol is only one clue. Best to know, Is it Carb or Injection, Manual or Auto? They all have different things going on.

Because I'm a bit more familiar with it, I'm going to assume "Injection with an Auto box."

Really White is either Steam or ATF. This extract from my website explains.

White smoke (here) generally indicates production of steam from coolant entering the combustion process via a blown head gasket, a cracked head, both usually resulting from prolonged overheating, and less commonly, a water leak into the intake manifold.

Such smoke usually has the sweet smell of antifreeze and, upon inspection, one may find an oily film of combustion residues in the coolant expansion tank and a creamy deposit in accessible parts of the engine, such as the rocker covers, oil filler cap or dipstick tube. This “mayonnaise” is simply the impurities carried around with the coolant deposited in these places after the water content has been driven off by engine heat.

However, don’t be fooled by plumes of similar white emissions occurring on very cold mornings because in such large engines as the RV8, the initial inefficient combustion process generates loads of H2O which evaporates visibly from those large tail pipes. Such emissions are of no consequence and disappear as soon as the engine warms up.

Plumes of thick white smoke are invariably due to combusting ATF caused by a damaged automatic transmission modulator valve allowing fluid to be sucked into the intake manifold via the transmission vacuum feed tube. Simultaneous transmission malfunction is expected!

On the other hand could it be Light Grey? If so, check out the rest of the article here:

Rover SD1 Forum Snippet #7 - Interpret the Colour of Exhaust Smoke

Not much, but the best I can up with I'm afraid.

Ramon
Vintage Model Airplane and Rover SD1 3500cc Twin Plenum Vitesse

bwarb · Sep 28, 2008

al-one-arm said:
hi all
a friend of mine has got a lowly 51 plate 2000 petrol (fix or repair daily)mondeo estate.
apparantly everything works and drives perfect, except this confusing problem.
he cannot get it through an mot.
for an mot sniff test, you have to run the engine at 2500rpm for 30 secs.
after approx 24 secs the revs start fluctuating between 1500 and 5000rpm
and white smoke billows out the exhaust.
switch off the car, restart, no smoke(not even a little puff to clear out), car runs and drives perfect.drives at 2500rpm no smoke no losses of water,oil,brake fluid, etc,
ford garage says needs new engine, but they have not even got the test equip for diagnosis, taken it to electronic tuning specialists in chard, cant find any fault registered.
any suggestions from you experts(apart from scrap it)

This has presumably got a 2.0l Zetec engine which is a solid enough engine. As this seems to be solidly and repeatably time related, it would be unlikely to be a mechanical fault in the engine as that would be unlikely to be fixed time intervals and more likely to be continuous.

I would suggest that one of the engine actuators is turning something on/off and giving you the symptoms you're seeing, so I would suggest you disconnect every actuator one at a time, repeat the 2500 rpm for 30 secs test and see what changes.

Start first with the EGR valve and continue on with every actuator that can interfere with the air intake system.........

al-one-arm · Sep 30, 2008

hi
it is indeed an "Injection with an Auto box." engine cover says something like "duraco" and apparently is has only just had a new genuine auto gearbox fitted, at around £3000. could they have fixed the problem but left the cause?

ramon.alban · Sep 30, 2008

That probably narrows it down to this

Plumes of thick white smoke are invariably due to combusting ATF caused by a damaged automatic transmission modulator valve allowing fluid to be sucked into the intake manifold via the transmission vacuum feed tube. Simultaneous transmission malfunction is expected!

Now look fo a vacuum line from the transmission to the injection manifold and if there is one identify the transmission component involved, maybe it has a minor leak.

otherwise ask the guy who fitted the transmission to review his work.

Ramon

al-one-arm · Nov 8, 2008

finally, he now has the car back from the specialist's.
after loads of asking around, they were finally told by some-one some-where that the early duratec engines had plastic inlet manifolds, and there was a valve inside that went wrong allowing oil to be sucked up from the sump.
he had it replaced(manifold £377+vat+fitting) nearly £700 in total
no smoke at any time now. all fixed

brainiacs required for this one.white smoke

al-one-arm

Well-Known Member

ramon.alban

New Member

bwarb

New Member

al-one-arm

Well-Known Member

ramon.alban

New Member

al-one-arm

Well-Known Member

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