Smokin' 200Tdi

My 110 200Tdi is chucking out loads of exhaust smoke. It is grey and hangs in the air - so I don't think it's the head gasket - the water vapour would disappear pretty quick if it was that.

The haynes says to check the injectors by pulling off the union for each injector in turn - apparently the smoking should stop if I pull off the union for a faulty injector - not sure why this would be - does anyone know? Either way, I did this and there was no change in the exhaust smoking.

A friend suggested the turbo might be wobbly - I pulled off the flexy pipe and had a wiggle of the impeller - no play in that.

I have been running it on biodiesel, so the injectors might still be the problem, but an expensive way to rule something out.

Does anyone have any ideas at all?

Video of the exhaust smoking is on utube -

Puffing 200tdi - YouTube

I am a bit stumped on this one...


Cheers,

Vulch

chuck half a bottle of forte diesel treatment into a new fuel filter and fit it to the car, then add the other half to a low fuel tank, should clean the injectors if its them

Agree with Johnlad - clean the injectors.

Thanks very much guys! I have found the stuff on amazon, but imagine my local motor factors might also have some from the look of it. I have a pretty full tank - will running through this tank before adding forte make the problem worse? I could probably find a way to pump it out if I had to.

Vulch

I'm no expert, in fact I came on here as I have a similar problem with mine. Only mine is black smoke when under load. I was told black smoke is injectors and blue smoke was oil. Mine was running fine till I poured in some fuel injector treatment into the tank and ran it out. Now I have the problem.

Bent conrod?

How does the engine run when you rev it from cold? Does the white smoke develop a blue tint at all? Does it seem to have lost power or sound to be running any differently? Does it idle consistently and steady or does it hunt periodically?

Looking at the video, I would say that there is a cylinder down on compression. White smoke (if not water) is usually partially burned diesel caused by a lack of compression in the affected cylinder or air contamination in the fuel line. Because the white smoke is pulsing from the exhaust, as opposed to being produced at a constant rate, I think it is safe to say that you have one, perhaps two cylinders at fault. It could be caused by a number of things that can be fixed without a major overhaul, such as tight valve clearances, a leaky injector seal, a loose glow plug, or air finding its way into the fuel line. I would strongly suggest that you check for those things first. Oil / fuel around the injectors or the glow plugs would be a tell tale sign if compression is escaping from one of those points.

Injector faults can produce smoke in all sorts of different colours depending on the fault. Smoke at idle like that, if injector related, is usually down to a bad spray pattern or seat leakage. Depending on the severity of the seat leakage and depending on the overall condition of your engine (i.e. compression levels) the smoke can vary from white, through blue, to black. Blue is not always necessarily just burning oil. A massively over fuelling engine at idle with no load can produce a white / blue smoke.

-Tom

that looks like a faulty injector from looking at exhaust puffs ,you only need slacken each injector nut in turn

Try the injector cleaner first, then if that doesn't work, start working through the other suggestions starting with the simplest first.

Right. I've tried the injector cleaner - which has had no effect. I couldn't get hold of Forte so use the comma stuff instead - is this the same thing or is forte significantly better?

I have now also loosened each injector nut in turn - which causes the engine to struggle, but no real change in the smoke. HOWEVER, if it is two cylinders at fault, then surely I would have to loosen those two injector nuts at the same time to stop fuel going in and therefore stop unburned fuel coming out of the back? Is it enough to just loosen the nut - I ended up taking the pipe right off and catching the diesel in a rag, which worked, but is a bit tricky if I am going to be taking off two pipes at once.
Also, is there a clever way of fixing the throttle at medium revs - I am working on my own and it would make things a lot easier.

There is quite a bit of oil or diesel around the injectors and the glow plugs. How do I pull an injector? Is it as easy as it looks?

Thanks for all of your help so far!

Vulch

the forte stuff is loads better, most other cleaners just boost the fuel rating, making you think its improved whereas forte contains no cetane booster and works well,
have a look on you tube at vids of it

mikescuba said:

I'm no expert, in fact I came on here as I have a similar problem with mine. Only mine is black smoke when under load. I was told black smoke is injectors and blue smoke was oil. Mine was running fine till I poured in some fuel injector treatment into the tank and ran it out. Now I have the problem.

Click to expand...

I changed the air filter and that seemed to sort out the problem, but just for good measure I changed the diesel filter and ran some more injector treatment through it and now its fine. Job done.

Right. I have run a bottle of Forte Advanced Diesel Treatment through it - put half in a new fuel filter and half in the tank. I changed the air filter at the same time for good measure. I started it up and it ran, then struggled on and off for about a minute, then ran - but no change in the smoke from the back.

That Forte stuff is quite hard to get hold of. I ended up using this website: The Good Garage Scheme: Homepage

which seems to be the Forte-approved stockists - £15 from a local MOT centre - same price as on Amazon/similar.

So what do to next?

My logic is this:

the smoke is coming out of the cylinders. It is unburned diesel - by my reckoning and than of the guy at a local garage.

I have power loss.

Therefore one or more of the cylinders is not burning the diesel properly.

Therefore if I remove the diesel feed to each injector in turn, this should stop the smoking when I get to the problem cylinder, but will also make it run quite badly.

Is it a matter of just loosening the injector nut, or should I completely disconnect it? Can I do this at idle, or should I have medium revs?

I am determined to sort it.

Vulch

OK. So I just loosen the nut. Combinations of two injectors seem to not have much effect at all on the smoke at the back.

When I loosen number one(?) injector nut (nearest the front of the engine) I get a significant drop in engine note. Loosening the others in turn does not have the same effect.

When I loosen number three, I get what I think is exhaust fumes coming out as well as the diesel... Is it this injector that is completely fooked? When I loosen the others I just get spray out of diesel.

Has anyone else seen this before?

Vulch

Hmm. Booked it in to see my local landy bloke. Took it across there this morning and on the way it seemed to sort itself out. I have been running it on biodiesel and he reckons there might have been some resulting crap in one of the injectors stopping it from closing and causing overfuelling. Told me that Bio is rubbish and I should put pump diesel in it or suffer the consequences!

Vulch