New convert to the diesel Mercedes fold. I'm the proud new owner of a
1982 300CD-T, and I understand that some smoke is just part of owning these cars. I get some white smoke on startup, but none that I notice otherwise. I run B100 in the car. How do I know if the smoke is normal or excessive?
Blue smoke is oil.
Black smoke is fuel.
White smoke is coolant.
Head gasket I'd say.
Don't know about the B100 fuel. White smoke, usually lots of it is a symptom of head gasket failure. Suggest you watch coolant level and if coolant is in the engine oil and / or oil in the coolant. If neither and no coolant loss is observed switch the diesel #2 to determine if the B100 is the cause.
The white smoke immediately after startup of which you speak is simply fuel that has accumulated during startup. It should disappear almost immediately but on cold days may hang around for a bit. Also, the new glow plug relays which stay on longer than usual will help eliminate white smoke that occurs until the engine warms up. However, if you have a continuous stream of white smoke you've got oil-in-the-cylinder problems caused by bad rings, valve guides, etc., etc., etc. Again, if the smoke goes away rather quickly don't worry unless you're losing engine oil, coolant, transmission oil, etc.
Black smoke is fuel blue smoke is oil white snoke is coolant.
On a diesel white smoke can also be unignited fuel. A bad cylinder will result in a continuous white plume. BTDT.
bad cylinder will
Can't say I've ever seen that. Just black. Take a pie-pan full of fuel and light it. It burns with black smoke not white.
Dude, you're burning coolant. You might get a little transparent water vapour coming out your exhaust at the very very beginning but white smoke especially that's heavier after the car site longer sure sounds like a breached head gasket to me.
Keep an eye on your coolant level. My guess is it's dropping ever so slowly. And shuoldn't be.
White smoke on start-up is usually condensation from exhaust gas. Burning fuel results mainly in CO2 and water. As long as the exhaust pipe is not warmed up the water damp is cooled and can condensate, especially in cold weather. This is normal, cars with long exhaust with relatively large diameter like mercedes will show this more than some other cars. This is not a sign of a failing head gasket. symptoms of water in the engine because of head gasket failure are: Difficult first turn of engine after sitting overnight and lots of smoke if the engine is warm. Small leaks may only result in slowly dropping of coolant level. Other symptoms are oil in coolant and coolant in oil
That's because it's burning Richard. UNIGNITED fuel in the exhaust will just give white smoke (actually vapor I think). We used to get this condition on the Contintental AVDS 1790-2A (air cooled, dual turbocharged V-12) engines in M60A1 tanks when one or more jugs (cylinders) would go bad. They would have insufficient compression to ignite the fuel mixture in that cylinder and would come out the exhaust as a white plume. The vapor would also make your eyes water and your lungs hurt!
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