But before I get to that, just thought I'd mention that the dash lights all went out in the Carlton last night, and also the interior light, which should only delay going off when the engine's not running (or the ignition's on) now delays going off all the time (i.e. when a door is opened and shut, or just when I flick the light on for a few seconds, and back off again - is there a fuse that controls this?). So my run of luck continues..........
Anyway, the Omega. Basically, it doesn't work. Heh!
Seriously though, I don't know exactly where it's coming from, but looking from above the engine (standing at the front of the car) I can see a pool of oil to the left of the engine, below it. On starting it up it will rev, but with lots of smoke. This isn't oil burning off the exhaust (or anything hot) as there is just as much smoke when attempting to start the engine from cold. A mate of mine reckons this is exhaust gases - could it have dropped an exhaust valve or could it just be a cracked exhaust manifold or something.
My mate's theory is that the oil could be spewing out via the exhaust manifold (I forget his explanation of this exactly - I don't exactly see the connection between exhaust and oil), or that the turbo could be buggered, but seems fairly confident that the engine itself *isn't* actually f***ed, but it could just need the exhaust manifold sorting out, or at the worst a new turbo (any possibility of finding a decent second hand one?).
So, any ideas as to what exactly it'll need doing to make it a good runner again? I'm reluctant to chuck any more money at it, as I'd rather just cut my losses, but it'd be good to get an accurate diagnosis of what exactly has gone wrong, so I can say exactly what it'll need doing when it comes to chucking it up on ebay. If it's hard to tell from my descriptions, and someone reading this who knows this enging might possibly be in the Berkshire area one evening this week, and wouldn't mind popping over and having a look, then it'd be much appreciated (possibly by way of a bit of beer money).
Cheers,
Peter