Disco 300TDI Smoke Issues

Hi all, I'm knew here and have only owned a disco for about three months so am fairly new to Landrovers.. my background is high performance jap stuff and BMWs so fairly handy with the spanners.

I have an issue with my M plate 300TDI.. well had a lot of them but three weeks of welding sorted most of them out!

When I start her up she's a little sluggish to start from cold and I'll sometimes get a small cloud of greyish/blueish smoke. Also get black smoke but that's just normal diesel start up AFAIK! She runs fine and doesn't overheat although the guage takes forever to start moving and doesn't ever get to half way up... also has no fan on her for some reason (one on order) so I'm guessing there's no thermostat in there!

Once she's hot though and traveling at slow speed (offroad generally) eventually I'll get big clouds of greyish/blueish smoke on acceleration and a small puff on overrun. The cloud on acceleration is pretty big but does clear when pushed hard and goes back to running clean.

I'm familiar with tubo's and this seems to point to turbo seals to me... but thought I'd ask having done some searching around and found the following as possibles:

1. EGR
2. Blown turbo seals
3. Valve stems
4. Piston rings
5. Head gasket

So we've done a bit of investigation and the inlet tract is full of nasty black gunk which I assume is from the EGR (?) or possible blown turbo seals (?). I'm going to blank of the EGR soon. Checked the turbo and it is a bit oily on the inlet side but not a huge amount, purchased a second hand unit of sh*tBay and it's in a similar state so haven't put it on yet

I don't have a lot of spare cash at the moment but have a trip to Strata Florida coming up in a month so really need to get this sorted! Any adivse gladly received!

Thanks ... Phil

hi mate with the smoke at start up it could be the fuel pump timing try this
[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWK-z-J13ko&NR=1"]YouTube- land rover tools 200tdi and 300tdi Bosch VE pump timing with the timing cover case intact[/nomedia] it worked for me
might be worth flushing out the inter cooler and inlet manifold with parrafin
alot of people take off the fan for a couple of extra horses and so it heats up quicker for heat in the winter time.
also worth getting the egr removed easy to do search on here plenty of how to's and it is really cheap too also a decat pipe frees up a few horses and they are really cheap from island 4x4 too hope this helps

Thanks for the info! Got to admit I do wondr if it is cack being sucked in from the inlet tract as it's a total mess in there and the smoking is very random as to when it occurs. Will check the fuel pump out.

Here's a strange symptom I've just noticed today... if I drive along in first at about 2.5k RPM then she starts smoking like a good-un, big old cloud of grey/blue smoke, if I let off so she goes onto over-run the cloud gets smaller and goes blue only.

Any ideas?

So fitted a fan and cowling on the weekend, the smoking is a lot less frequent now and no where near as bad when it happens. engine temp stays consistent at about 1/3 on the guage.

So problem's still there... any further ideas?

hi mate i have just bought a 300 tdi off flea bay , it smoked like a pig when i went to look at it but i bid on and won it anyway , i am going to blank the egr as it is like yours and full of what look likes tar , also i will de cat and fit a straight through middle pipe , think this will help as it only smokes on start up and soon clears , mind u its done 205k so cant blame it , just hope its better than my £td5 disco i have just sold piece of crap

Blanking the EGR has helped it would appear but the issue is still there...

Basically on startup she'll give a puff of white smoke for the first few blips of the throttle which clears pretty quickly...

Then once warm if you put her under load (spool the turbo up) then let off and feather the throttle just to keep it on the edge of the cam (so when it's gone from maximum boost to maximum vacuum) there's a fairly sizeable plume of white/grey/blue smoke.

The whole situation's got a lot better since starting to run on a 50/50 mix of Derv and WVO but that's another story!

I am somewhat perplexed, all I can think is knackered turbo oil seal, possibly on the exhaust side so oil getting into the zorst.

Thoughts appreciated!!!???

hi, check the bottom sprocket on the cam belt, the keyway wears and at sertain rpms the timing goes out and pours blue smoke out, a realy comon problem with these we have at least 3 or 4 a month in that have this problem. hope this helps let me know.

Thanks for the info I'll take a look, take it fix is a nee pully? Dumb question but can you explain keyway?