Diesel smoking white

[Elvir]

Hello all,

First i want to say, I love this forum. It has a bunch of great information. I usually don't post random stuff without reseraching first but some stuff i am still unclear about.

I just bought my very first diesel VW. It is a 1981 caddy so its two years older than me. . I must say i am in love with it. It looks to have been very meticulously taken care of. The body has no rust nor dents besides the obvious ones in the bed. Otherwise the body is in mint shape. The good bit of window seals have been already replaced, and the interior is pretty good.

Now, supposedly, and i do not know how much to trust, but owner said about 4 years ago major overhaul has been performed. Pistons, rings, rods, clutch..etc.

The car drives fine. It does not over heat, but it shoots a lot of white smoke during and after worm-up. I took it for a 300mile round trip and i noticed oil light came on and i topped it off, and its fine now. I did not get a chance to monitor how much it is burning.

Now I do not mind replacing a head gasket if its a problem, nor valve seals, but I am VERY cramped in my garage as i have another big turbo jetta project going on so removing motor would be unwanted at this time.

At this time, i would like to get some basic input as far as what it could possibly be, so i can start knocking the stuff of my list. If anybody has any suggestions or input as far as trouble shooting or testing, please let me know.


Elvir

[82vdub]

Welcome to the forum. Depending on where you live (hint - put your location in your profile), there may be more smoke on cold starts when it's cold out than normal warm temp starts.

White smoke is also a sign of poor combustion. The two common problems for poor combustion is low compression, or retarded timing. I would check the timing of the injector pump to be sure (or just advance it a bit, or move it as you feel) and see how it goes. If this doesn't correct the issue, then do a compression check. This will tell you what's going on inside the motor and whether you have a good foundation which to build on or not.

The flashing oil light could be an oil pressure problem, wiring or relay problem, or pressure switch problem. Only way to know where to start looking is to run a manual gauge for oil pressure, and see what the gauge reads when the light comes on. Need to know basics first, to know where to proceed from that point.

[Elvir]

Thanks for that info.

I was looking for tools on ebay and came across this. That dial gauge looks different from the one posted here on the parts list. anybody have any experience with it.

I called the company up, and they cannot say whether it will work or not, yet they package it all together.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/VW-Diese ... veQ5fTools


TIA


Elvir

[82vdub]

That setup looks like it will work.

[Elvir]

well, I got some dissapointing news.

I topped off the coolant and filled it right up to the full mark couple days ago. Two days of driving and it is sitting at the half mark. So the truck definetly has a blown head gasket.


Today i inspected the motor. I looked at the air filter and found lots of oil in the manifold I cleaned it all up. i figured its blow back from crank and valve cover. Drove to advance auto parts to buy new filter, 8 mile drive. Pulled the air filter out and there was an oil puddle in the manifold again. Tip stick read low after topping off yesterday 30 mile drive.


I would have settled for doing a head gasket, which is not a biggie. but this much oil consuption does not sound good for the block..An ideas.]


Elvir

[bscutt]

You might get away with a re-ring job, head studs (the 81's are 11mm head bolts, not great) and a new head gasket. It's not unusual to have some oil in the intake in my opinion, at least for an engine with many miles on it. My 82 has 207K on the clock, runs great, but I do get some oil in the intake. I also run Shell Rotella synthetic oil in it which may blow by a little more, but I don't worry about it.

Given that it was supposedly rebuilt 4 years ago and you don't know if it was re-bored, a re-ring may not help much if any but it is a possible option.

For white smoke you may want to just try slightly advancing the timing. Make a scribe line on the pump body and extend it on to the bracket. Loosen the pump mounting bolts and rotate the top of the pump slightly towards the valve cover, maybe about 1/32 of an inch from the mark and see if it helps any. If not you can always set it back on the mark. I have a dial gauge setup but really depend on that as a starting point and then tune the pump by ear, performance, and mileage to get it where it sounds good and runs good.

As for the head gasket being blown, that's not necessarily the case. You should look for evidence of oil in the water or vice versa, check for pressure in the cooling tank after 30 seconds of running from cool (indicating exhaust gasses escaping into the cooling system), and post back what you find. You may have blowby consuming the oil or you may have leaks that aren't readily visible like the back side of the valve cover, main seal, etc.

You may coax more life out of it with a little thicker oil too but with cold weather approaching that may make starting harder.

[Elvir]

initially i did not inted to keep the diesel in it. i bought it to temporarily be a dalily driver untill i did some other work to my real daily. once i was done, i was going to swap a motor in the caddy with something bigger.


I guess, i could create a a nice sized catch can to collect all the oil being blown into the intake, that way i dont waste retarted amount of money on oil and can just drop it back in once collected enough.


Elvir

[82vdub]

as bscutt says, you may not have a bad head gasket, or getting coolant into the engine. Most diesels have high enough compression that when a block is cracked or the head gasket goes, the combustion gasses go into the coolant (and the engine overheats really easily) not the other way around.

Some have rigged up catch cans to keep oil from going back into the intake. THere's a baffle that can be installed under the valve cover that reduces the oil that gets sucked up into the valve cover vent. If you open the oil fill cap on the valve cover and can see the camshaft, your engine doesn't have the baffle. It came standard on later model engines.

[Quantum-man]

Take your cam cover off and clean the gauze in the outlet. It is probably near blocked, which allows oil to be sucked out
OOps, sorry, missed last post

[bscutt]

Yes I forgot about the baffle. I put one in my 80 which had blowby and subsequently went into runaway, also did the conversion that tees into the vent hose from the valve cover back to the block where the hose from the vacuum pump connects to the block. Completely eliminated the runaway problem. I also put one in my 82 just as a safety measure. They do help keep the oil from splashing into the vent hose.

As for swapping out the diesel engine for a gasser engine, that's just sacrilege in my book. The diesel caddys are fairly rare and worth a lot of money in decent shape, more so that the gas engine ones. Swapping in a turbo diesel engine will give appreciably more power while still retaining the benefits of a diesel and the resale value.

[Elvir]

Bob,

do you have any pictures of what you are talking about, going from valve cover to block. My truck has all modified hoses, and compared to stock truck is different.

Also,

doing that and the baffle, how much oil are we talking about reducing.

To the comment higher up..the car does not over heat. and the coolant does not look bad



Elvir

[Golf/Jetta]

How long has the Caddy been sitting? Using the same fuel that was in the tank?

Could be stuck rings.
Burning old fuel.
Coolant finally settling in.

Is your coolant line really stiff when the engine is at operating temperature?
If so, could have a cracked head/block? Does it overheat fast? Coolant spilling out the reservoir pressure cap? Does the exhaust reek of coolant or something funky?

Search around for that 1.9 or mk3/mk4 if your sticking with diesel. Might find it cheaper to buy the whole car and see/hear/feel it run. Don't know your funds (budget).

[coke]

The cam baffle is a must. It was installed in all the later A2 on up vehicles. Its about 20 dollars at the dealer, and well worth every penny. It sits on top of the camshaft and keeps the oil on the camshaft, where it belongs. It should mostly eliminate the oil pooling in the intake.

[Elvir]

How long has the Caddy been sitting? Using the same fuel that was in the tank?

Could be stuck rings.
Burning old fuel.
Coolant finally settling in.

Is your coolant line really stiff when the engine is at operating temperature?
If so, could have a cracked head/block? Does it overheat fast? Coolant spilling out the reservoir pressure cap? Does the exhaust reek of coolant or something funky?

Search around for that 1.9 or mk3/mk4 if your sticking with diesel. Might find it cheaper to buy the whole car and see/hear/feel it run. Don't know your funds (budget).

The caddy alread went through two full gas tanks.
Coolant has been flushed and replaced. It is clean not mixed with oil, but does seem like drops. i started recording the drop levels.
Which coolant line are you talking about, upper lower, expansion tank lines?
The truck has not over heated even when teh coolant was low. I found one coolant line worn out and leaking. It is not spilling out of the reservioir
As far as funky smeeling, im trying to learn to distinguish differences in smell.

The cam baffle is a must. It was installed in all the later A2 on up vehicles. Its about 20 dollars at the dealer, and well worth every penny. It sits on top of the camshaft and keeps the oil on the camshaft, where it belongs. It should mostly eliminate the oil pooling in the intake.

i will look into that purchsing that. Mine does not have it. Which year A2 would have it, andy 1.6D?

Im still curious about piping the the valve cover piping to route the oil back to block



Elvir

[Quantum-man]

If your coolant level is dropping, it is unlikely to be entering into the cylinders. This is because under operation, the cylinder operates at perhaps 1000psi, compared with a maximum of say 20psi in the coolant. If there is a significant bridge across the head gasket, then one of 3 things will happen:
1) Healthy hosepipes and the coolant top up cap will release the water.
2) Healthy hoses, and the top radiator hose being the largest diameter, will blow up like a balloon, and burst, probably just outside the head outlet area.
3) Poor hoses and you will get a different hose to burst.
4)OK I lied
Minor leaks at joints will bleed, due to a minor [if any]head gasket leak. May only leak as steam, so no trace...