I took a risk.....Considering !!

[MetalDonkey]

Hi Guys I decided to take a big risk. I decided to drive my LC5 to Paris for a couple of days. She preformed faultlessly apart from..... Gassing some of the Parisians with diesel smoke on start up even though I have a Crit'de Air certificate. This leads me to ask the question, is it easy to change the Turbo oil seal, as that is what I suspect the problem to be. I have had the injector seats changed at a considerable expense.. She has a Hi milage engine and I also expect that some head work might need doing also ...Other than the inital startup clouds of whitish gray smoke, she ran perfectly

 

[StarCruiser]

Whitish grey smoke is usually unburnt diesel down to poor compression and/or heat. Duff heater plugs can be a cause.

 

[priffe]

White smoke on start is usually turbo failure.
There's no seal or gasket - needs a new turbo, or at least a new rotor

 

[Shayne]

My truck does it sometimes and it used to be alarming but over a time i've come to relax about it and blame the intercooler , i think in certain conditions cold air condenses leaving water in it which of course is evaporated on a bit of a lumpy start up and a white cloud . I'm talking years and i have a different engine with a retro fitted intercooler but i mention it because there's nothing worse than looking for an expensive fix for a problem that doesn't exist .

 

[AndycruiserguyLomas]

Hi Guys I decided to take a big risk. I decided to drive my LC5 to Paris for a couple of days. She preformed faultlessly apart from..... Gassing some of the Parisians with diesel smoke on start up even though I have a Crit'de Air certificate. This leads me to ask the question, is it easy to change the Turbo oil seal, as that is what I suspect the problem to be. I have had the injector seats changed at a considerable expense.. She has a Hi milage engine and I also expect that some head work might need doing also ...Other than the inital startup clouds of whitish gray smoke, she ran perfectly

What do you consider "high mileage"?

 

[IRLGW]

high mileage in a 120 could be anything that made it past the first warranty stamp! I think ecu are pre programmed for cold start and idle so that rules out a lot sensor problems. Perhaps like all good submarines this diagnosis should begin with a compression test.... You can get a turbo reconditioning kit off eBay for around £100 so if you dont mind getting your hands oily then there are worse things to be doing on a Saturday morning. if the turbo oil seal is failing your intercooler will have excessive oil in it as well so maybe take a hose off and inspect

 

[StarCruiser]

You can eliminate the turbo by removing the pipe between it and the manifold for test purposes as IRL says. With it disconnected if you get the same startup smoke it’s not the turbo. If you do the same with the intercooler you can eliminate that too as neither will be doing anything for the engine on startup.

 

[Shayne]

It just crossed my mind that i haven't seen the white smoke on my truck for a long while so maybe it related to a boost leak , perhaps prompting the condensation theory i posted earlier . It's all been apart so many times maybe i fixed the leak and the problem without even knowing it ?