Weird 300tdi oil smoke

Hi there all,

Got a bit of a strange issue going on. I've just spent about 6k restoring my 1997 300tdi. One of the things that was wrong with it when I got it was that it smoked heavily. This turned out to be the turbo forcing copious amounts of oil into the engine. I replaced the turbo with a used one as at that point I wasn't sure if I was keeping it but it had quite a lot of play when it arrived in the post.. anyways now I get quite heavy oil smoke (not as much as before) when I start it in the morning. This all but disappears after a mile or so which lead me to believe valve seals but now I have noticed a lot of oil leaking into the downpipe from presumably the turbo. There also seems to be oil on the intake side but I don't think this is from breathers as it only goes back 10cm or so. Is this turbo bad to??
Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
Thanks

If the one you replaced was near enogh the same condition as the "new" one i would suspect that yes both units were ****ed.

Yeah it had as much play. Would an oil leak into the manifold cause smoke on start up? It's not going Into the intake now.

Prolly is sucking it in..

Henry_b said:

Prolly is sucking it in..

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It's definitely not getting into the intake it's real dry. I think it's leaking streight into the exhaust when it heats up it expands just enough to seal. You think the egt's would be high enough at start up to burn oil?

Have you checked the cyclone and pipes?

Kev12 said:

Have you checked the cyclone and pipes?

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Yeah. There a light bit but not much. There's a lot of oil on the turbo intake side but this seems to disappear in about 10cm (before the line from the cyclone filter atatches)

Disco&Defender said:

It's definitely not getting into the intake it's real dry. I think it's leaking streight into the exhaust when it heats up it expands just enough to seal. You think the egt's would be high enough at start up to burn oil?

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EGTs are nothing when you start up the engine and stay low for some time until you either give it some beans or it warms up

Disco&Defender said:

Yeah. There a light bit but not much. There's a lot of oil on the turbo intake side but this seems to disappear in about 10cm (before the line from the cyclone filter atatches)

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Thats most likely because your engine is breathing heavy, ie its worn.
If you dont do deep water off road work its worth trying routing the breather to the inner wing and putting a bolt into the blank hole in the inlet trunking and see how you get on.

Run the breather into a chassis rail. Cheap and easy rust protection

lynall said:

Thats most likely because your engine is breathing heavy, ie its worn.
If you dont do deep water off road work its worth trying routing the breather to the inner wing and putting a bolt into the blank hole in the inlet trunking and see how you get on.

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The

lynall said:

Thats most likely because your engine is breathing heavy, ie its worn.
If you dont do deep water off road work its worth trying routing the breather to the inner wing and putting a bolt into the blank hole in the inlet trunking and see how you get on.

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So I've got a bit of an update. Took the turbo off but left the oil feed and return on and then ran the engine with open headers. There is a decent amount of oil leaking from the turbo into the exhaust so I'm getting a new one. I'm sure it's not breathers now as when I ran it open headers with no intake etc I still get the smoke directly from the engine. There seems to be a bit of a misfire when the misfire occurs the smoke gets much worse.
It looks blue to me but could it be timing related? It's not injectors as the smoke comes from all exhaust ports. Any ideas? new to me I've had a few 300tdi but non with this.
Thanks

Disco&Defender said:

The

So I've got a bit of an update. Took the turbo off but left the oil feed and return on and then ran the engine with open headers. There is a decent amount of oil leaking from the turbo into the exhaust so I'm getting a new one. I'm sure it's not breathers now as when I ran it open headers with no intake etc I still get the smoke directly from the engine. There seems to be a bit of a misfire when the misfire occurs the smoke gets much worse.
It looks blue to me but could it be timing related? It's not injectors as the smoke comes from all exhaust ports. Any ideas? new to me I've had a few 300tdi but non with this.
Thanks

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Sinple test is to run the engine until its warm and whilst ticking over loosen the rocker cap, if the cap takes off you have issues!

lynall said:

Sinple test is to run the engine until its warm and whilst ticking over loosen the rocker cap, if the cap takes off you have issues!

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Yeah I've done that.pritty much no blow by. Cap sits there happy enough. I think it's something in the head.

Disco&Defender said:

Yeah I've done that.pritty much no blow by. Cap sits there happy enough. I think it's something in the head.

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Well theres no much to look at tbh
Thers always oily snot on the glow plug tips when removed so if you see that ignore it, small cracks between the valves isnt unusual either.
The fact all 4 cyls are smoking as bad would get me looking at the fuel equipment, especially the timing, which can be advanced a little on the factoy setting.