White smoke under load

[Sage Root]

Hello

New to the forum.
I have an 82 Westy that I bought with a 1.6 turbo diesel (from an Audi A4 I think). I have had the van for about 10 years or so. The engine blew after a couple of years and I rebuilt it and added a new head from VWDieselParts.com about 8 years ago. Within the next year or so my turbo bushing wore out and I got a rebuilt turbo. The van was running great for a year or so.

This is where my memory gets a bit fuzzy. The van suddenly lost top end power and started blowing black smoke under load (I'm almost positive that it was black smoke). There also seemed to be a new rattling sound coming from the Injection Pump. The van has never had any problems starting or idling.

I parked the van.

8 years later I have decided that I want to get the camper running so I can take my 3 year old son on little weekend trips. I cleaned everything up, drained about 1/2 a gallon of lacquer out of the tank, new fuel filter. The van starts and idles great, but blows white smoke under load and makes no top end power (lots of low end torque though). I could have sworn that the smoke was black 8 years ago. I can't tell if the rattle has gone away or not (these engines are pretty rattly).

I ran some injector cleaner through the system (no results).

I had some air bubbles running through the fuel lines that I have gotten rid of (no results).

I was initially thinking that the timing belt may have jumped a tooth but all of the marks line up @ TDC (haven't pulled the valve cover to check the cam timing yet). Now I am thinking maybe the injection pump is the problem since I think it was black smoke and now it is white, and the rattle that may or may not have gone away. The pump and injectors are the only things that are not new.

I am going to order the little adapter tool to check the pump timing soon. Other than that I am kind of at a loss, and that is why I am here.

Sorry for the long story, and any ideas are appreciated.

Sage

[bscutt]

After 8 years of sitting I would change that timing belt ASAP. They will deteriorate and shred leading to a trashed engine. I caught mine in time on my 79 which was parked for 11 years before I got it.

After that recheck all of the timing (hopefully when doing the new belt) and start looking for air in the fuel line going into the pump. You may also have crud in the tank restricting the flow. Personally I would start with the belt & timing and if it still blows whte smoke try advancing the pump timing a fraction until it starts rattling at idle. If you still have white smoke, you may be sucking air. Also the shaft seal on the pump may have gone bad and is letting in air. They are not too difficult to change, Fatmobile and others have posted some techniques for removing the seal without disassembling the pump nor damaging the shaft or pump sealing surfaces.

The pump may also be crudded up inside, Diesel Purge will help clean it out.

[82vdub]

As bscutt said too. White smoke is also a sign of poor combustion, possibly from retarded timing (as bscutt mentioned) and also from low compression. It's possible that the rings aren't quite sealing all the way and that after some miles they will free up. But, address the timing issue and timing belt (and tensioner) first.

[Sage Root]

I tried advancing and retarding the timing by ear this evening. I would only get a rattle upon retarding the timing. I still have smoke when retarded and advanced. The shaft seal idea is interesting, I will have to research that. Can I pull off the pulley and inspect the seal? Is there a bench test that can be run on these pumps?

Here is a video of the tailpipe.
http://vimeo.com/13747378
As you can see there is minimal smoke until a load is applied.

Thanks again
Sage

[Quantum-man]

I tried advancing and retarding the timing by ear this evening. I would only get a rattle upon retarding the timing. I still have smoke when retarded and advanced. The shaft seal idea is interesting, I will have to research that. Can I pull off the pulley and inspect the seal? Is there a bench test that can be run on these pumps?

Here is a video of the tailpipe.
http://vimeo.com/13747378
As you can see there is minimal smoke until a load is applied.

Thanks again
Sage

Engine sounds pretty good actually! Try backing out the max fuel screw a tad....

[bscutt]

Inspecting the shaft seal visually will be tough. There's not much to see unless it's really severely torn up which is unlikely. If you have clear lines coming out of the pump (rteurn line) you would probably see bubbles in it and not in the input line if the shaft seal is bad.

As for a bench test, best bet is to find a diesel shop that can test the pump. You can spin them up on the bench with a drill with 12V applied to the shutoff solenoid and see fuel spitting out of the unions but you already have fuel or it wouldn't run at all. Dirty injectors can also cause smoking. If you are going to pull the pump out for testing I would also pull the injectors and get them to a shop who can test for breaking pressure and spray pattern. It's going to cost a few bucks but it's well worth knowing the condition off the pump and the injectors.

At this point if you don't want to pull all that fuel line hardware I would change the timing belt and time it as best you can (be sure to get the cam and flywheel lined up perfectly), and run a can of diesel purge through the system. This is done by running the input and output lines from the pump directly into the can of diesel purge until the can then running teh engine directly off the diesel purge until the can is almost emptty. Then reconnect the lines to the fuel tank and see if it smokes any less. Chances are things are gummed up from years of sitting.

Once running again you can tweak timing and just run the engine to see if things seat back in properly. Also after running for a while (maybe 100 miles or so if you get it back on the road) and change the fuel filter again.

FYI on my 79 Rabbit I ended up replacing the fuel tank because of the rust and crud that kept clogging the fuel line and the tank outlet eventually had clogged completely up which was inaccessible because of the configuration of that outlet line inside the tank. I tried every trick in the book to clean the old tank to no avail. Now it runs perfectly although I still have light smoke, possibly due to hardened valve seals, but it's very slight and I will probably sell the car as is.

[Sage Root]

Running the diesel purge right now. I am seeing tiny bubbles in the return line. The shaft seal is sounding more likely than anything now.

[Quantum-man]

Running the diesel purge right now. I am seeing tiny bubbles in the return line. The shaft seal is sounding more likely than anything now.

I could be wrong, but some bubbling coming out of the pump is a natural function of the outlet bolt, so seal not corrupt. What has a seal to do with your unburnt fuel, any road?

[Sage Root]

Running the diesel purge right now. I am seeing tiny bubbles in the return line. The shaft seal is sounding more likely than anything now.

I could be wrong, but some bubbling coming out of the pump is a natural function of the outlet bolt, so seal not corrupt. What has a seal to do with your unburnt fuel, any road?

As bscutt said above there may be air getting into the pump through the shaft seal. I would think that if there was any air in the pump, it would get to the injectors and screw up the break point of the injectors.

Sage

[bscutt]

Yes you can have some air bubbles in the return line under normal operation so what I said in reference to air in the return line is not necessarily an absolute indicator of a leaking shaft seal. Honestly it's pretty hard to diagnose remotely with any level of accuracy. The size and number of bubbles could be an indicator of air getting into the low pressure side of the pump.

This could be a trial and error situation. If the diesel purge doesn't improve anything you will need to go down some other "fault trees". It sounds to me like you have some sort of pump problem but restricted fuel lines, injector problems, and probably a few other things could cause or contribute to the problem. Honestly I have only disassembled a pump enough to replace a few seals and trashed my first one before getting the technique right, so I'm no expert on these. There are a growing number of people on this forum with a lot more exerience with them than me so hopefully some others will chime in.

See if it runs any better after the diesel purge and let us know.

[82vdub]

and probably a few other things could cause or contribute to the problem.

Sitting for 8 years is one of them. After you get the timing belt changed, I'd suggest advancing the timing if there's still smoke, and check the compression ratio too.

[Sage Root]

Well after the diesel purge things are alot better. The car actually builds power on the top end and the smoking is not near as bad.

The bubbles that I am seeing are very small and seem to come and go in relation to engine load. I tried to shoot a video of the bubbles but they are too small to show up.

The tools to set the timing should be here Monday or Tuesday and I will let you guys know what I find.

[bscutt]

That's good news. I would not worry too much about the input shaft seal then unless you find obvious problems with it. I did not have to replace mine after 11 years of sitting and so far so good.

[hagar]

Sage Root :
New to this forum ? if so you swill find answers to ALL your questions. , consider yourself blessed .

The 1.6 L Turbo is the finest engine that VW made up to now 2010 , IMHO. but to ask it to pull a Westy ? is asking a lot.

You have one very important thing working for you Pictures and Video. I listened and looked at the "Smoke" . . Never , never , never use torque use RPM on these engines. This is a High speed diesel , read my lips..

Ratly ? mine are not ratly. they are smoooooooth and nice to listen to. (Rabbit at 62 MPG) 3 year old son ? I would love to have one of those.---yes I would not trade for all the Rabbits in the world. I have memories sharp as anything from when I was 3 .

Please post his name EH ? he will be world known. This forum is world wide. (I like that). I am a poor writer , BUT I read like crazy.

hagar.

[Sage Root]

The 1.6 L Turbo is the finest engine that VW made up to now 2010 , IMHO. but to ask it to pull a Westy ? is asking a lot.
hagar.

Its sure does ask a lot from the 1.6 td, but it is better than the 1.6 na that came stock in this van.

His name is Liam. I have memories from 3 of riding around in my moms 1958 VW Singlecab, which later turned out to be my first car after buying it from the guy that she sold it to.

All of the fuel in the return line drains out to the tank as soon as I shut the engine off. I am going to replace all of the little jumper hoses to each injector today with the clear vinyl so that I can see exactly what is going on.

I will also take some photos of my alternator mounting that I discussed here viewtopic.php?t=10209, and I think I will start a new thread to try and figure out a simple way to create an airbox (the one that is in there is a total Frankenstein mess).


Thanks again
Sage