• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.

    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

white smoke

BertVolmer

Freshman Member
Offline
hi everyone! Summer's finally arrived and I got to take the midget out quite a few times this year, loving every minute of it..
However, on my last trip the car decided what the countryside really needed was a big giant cloud of white smoke; needless to say the drivers behind me disagreed.
This happened only once, and when it happened I was still quite a long way from home, so there was plenty of time for a repeat perfomance. The same thing did happen to me about a year ago, though: also just the one time.
My question is: what happened? As I'm not to well known with the technical side of the car (any car for that matter), but eager to learn, I'm anxious to hear any suggestions. If they are any good I might use them to impress the mechanic/friend I have working on the car on occasions.:smile:
Here's the variables: I had just topped the oil the day before. Maybe I've overdone it? Oillevel reached the top notch on the dipstick but I'm not too sure the car was level at the time. Weather was fine: there wasn't any overheating (dail was somewhere half way between C and N) and at the time of the incedent there wasn't any sudden loss of oil pressure or power. The oilpressure is ussually between 40 and 60 on my car, depending on how fast we are going.
I'd greatly appriciate any suggestions.
Bye, Bert
 
Running rich = black smoke
Oil = blue smoke
Water = white smoke
That said, I can't add why it would smoke and then quit. If it was a water leak (blown head gasket, cracked head or block) it shouldn't come and go but be fairly consistent once it started.
 
I was thinking water myself but couldn't figure out why it would start and stop. I don't have a water choke but could there be some condition that occurs where water could be allowed to slip into the throat of the carb from there? I used to have an old ford pickup that would smoke in the spring when we first started it up but that was from it drawing moisture into it overnight as the engine cooled down. It would only smoke briefly and then it would be done but like I said that was on start-up. I'm baffled as to what it could be too but it does sound like water is getting in there.
JC
 
I would think that if somehow water was getting from the choke to the carb, the engine would stumble as it would contaminate the mixture. but I do agree, i've never heard of a motor only occasionally giving off white smoke. Water leaks don't fix themselves. Do you ever have to add coolant to the car? I'd suggest starting with a pressure test of the cooling system, then doing a compression test and a leak-down test on all cylinders. This should show a problem with the engine cooling system. If you do have a problem brewing, you may be able to catch it before it gets too bad and causes engine damage.
 
My guess is the PCV system sucked up a bit of oil and the car just burped it out the tail pipe.
It has happened to me 2 or 3 times, once I fogged out the whole beach /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
On another Sprite I had some coolant boil over and burn off on the exhaust manifold/pipe. The smoke was coming out from under the car but it looked like it was coming from the back of the car. Keep the coolant at the correct level, if you fill it to the top when cold, it expands and boils out when hot, and not overheating hot, normal operating temp.

Frank
 
Back
Top