White smoke from air intake after switch off

Hi

Hope you guys can help.

Took my 90 (1984 with original 19j engine) for a short drive to the shops yesterday and no sign of anything amiss, but on switching off the engine, white smoke appeared from air intake - not much and didn't last long, but strange. Drove the car home and same thing happened on switch off.

Any thoughts would be welcome!

Seb

A few points here.
An 84 Ninety would not have had a 19j as original.
White smoke can be unburnt diesel vapour or steam.
How did you see the smoke? Driver on the right and intake on the left side?
It is nice if folk give an area when they are and it can sometimes help with problem diagnosis.

Apologies, typo. It's a 1988 90. It's a left hand drive version, so the white smoke was coming from the intake on the left hand side. Noticed it as soon as I turned engine off and got out. Didn't see any smoke whilst driving.

SebH said:

Hi

Hope you guys can help.

Took my 90 (1984 with original 19j engine) for a short drive to the shops yesterday and no sign of anything amiss, but on switching off the engine, white smoke appeared from air intake - not much and didn't last long, but strange. Drove the car home and same thing happened on switch off.

Any thoughts would be welcome!

Seb

Click to expand...

Take the intake hoses off, and have a look inside them, see if there is any oil in there, and where.
Also open up the air filter housing, and inspect element, and remove it an look in the bottom of the housing.

SebH said:

Apologies, typo. It's a 1988 90. It's a left hand drive version, so the white smoke was coming from the intake on the left hand side. Noticed it as soon as I turned engine off and got out. Didn't see any smoke whilst driving.

Click to expand...

these can breathe heavily (at least my one did before swapping to a 200tdi) and the breather is connected to the intake before the air filter. If it is breathing heavily enough when you stop you loose the positive air pressure into the engine and you could get airflow out of the vent. Is it immediate of does it take a few second to be visible? Is it just a meandering of smoke or is it a forceful stream?

Many thanks for the reply. It takes a couple of seconds to be visible and yes, very much a meandering of smoke for 5 seconds or so before stopping.

SebH said:

Many thanks for the reply. It takes a couple of seconds to be visible and yes, very much a meandering of smoke for 5 seconds or so before stopping.

Click to expand...

try disconnecting the breather from before the air box and see what is coming out of that with the engine running if that is chuffing (more than likely in a 19j) then that is likely to be the issue and on one hand nothing to worry about because all 19j's do it but on the other hand shows a worn engine that will likely continue like that for many year to come but likely could do with a rebuild. whether a 19j is worth rebuilding is a completely separate debate.

This breather:

Many thanks for this and for the photo - will give that a go and as you say hopefully it is just a 19J being a 19J!

SebH said:

Many thanks for this and for the photo - will give that a go and as you say hopefully it is just a 19J being a 19J!

Click to expand...

Also try removing the rocker box cap, and start the engine. The vapour coming out will give an indication of crankcase pressure, and heavy chuffing shows a blown head gasket, also pretty common on 19js.

Another issue is because the engine vent pipe enters the air filter housing upstream the filter element can become contaminated with oil quite quickly if engine is heavy breather.
Just run pipe to a catch can, this can also help check on level of oil loss.