White smoke- adjusting timing doesn't change, 1.6td

[purvisgs]

Looking for quick input on getting a 1.6td running enough to get it home where I have dial indicator etc.

Right now it is running direct from a (clean) fuel tank with clear lines, no air bubbles, with inline 12v pump just in case that could help.

Symptoms; heavy white smoke, all the time. Actually: white smoke at idle, as you accelerate it puts out a little grey/black smoke under medium acceleration, and then at full throttle very heavy clouds of white smoke. This is all in neutral, parked, trying to drive it; it has a serious lack of power (can barley move up any sort of incline) and same amt or more of white smoke.

Head gasket is not the problem. All three timing marks line up perfectly so I am pretty confident it's not a tooth off...

I have read all the excellent info about timing, and have used the dial indicator esucesfully in the past, but no experience "timing by ear"

So I loosened the pump bolts (marked position of pump first) and advancing or retarding the timing doesn't really help much at all. I can only get the pump to move about 1/16 or less towards the engine, advanced, and then it won't move that direction any further. (should I be able to move it further than this?)

This far advanced I start to hear very slight "pinging" (maybe, but not sure)..and less white smoke at idle, but not under acceleration/load.


Advice please?

Any way to "field test" the injectors? Or narrow down if the problem might be IP or Injector related without pressure testing the IP or spray/pop testing the injectors.


I'm headed to the store to get some lubro molly diesel purge, and would very greatly appreciate any advice, tips, thoughts, etc.

Thank you

[82vdub]

You may need to slip the timing belt at the injection pump, so that there's enough "room" in the timing rhelm so that you can continue to advance the injection pump (timing). Sometimes, on assembly, the timing belt can be a half a tooth off, so it gets positioned on one cog, only to realize later that proper timing would require you to move it to the other cog. The injector pump can only rotate so far, before running out of slotted hole for it to rotate in. Don't forget to loosen all injector lines and the clamps after you rotate the pump to relax the injector lines.

[purvisgs]

Well I can report back with success, probably due to the diesel purge!

I ran one can of diesel purge through and a lot of the smoke went away but still no power under load. I left it there idling (running from tank of fuel) and after probably 1/2 hour of idling, all of a sudden the engine revved really high for about 10 seconds and then slowly went back down to normal. I ran over there and....nice! It accelerates normally and everything is back to normal. Have to mess with the timing perhaps, but it came back to life for sure!

I don't really have any theories, and haven't heard of this before but I'm guessing something lodged or frozen in the IP.

Thanks 82vdub as well!

[Fatmobile]

Glad that worked out so well.
Makes me wonder what it was.
I'm guessing a sticky injector, I think diesel purge is supposed to help with that.
Did you run it right out of the can? Sticking the return line back into the can? Was the stuff coming out of the pump getting dark?