About three weeks ago I started to smell burning oil waiting at red traffic lights, than after a row of red traffic lights I noticed blue/grey smoke from the exhaust, once I accelerate away the smoke and smell goes, no problem on the motorway either, no noticable loss of oil on the dipstick.
Last weekend I was at a busy carboot sale car park and was moving very slowly and stationary at idle for about 10 min and the amount of smoke was like a smoke screen, when accelerated away the smoke and smell clears, stationary at a roundabout approx half a mile away and no smell or smoke, this has got me puzled, any suggestions would be appreciated.
1994 mk 1 roadster, greddy turbo with wastegate and dump valve, intercooler.
To try to rectify the problem I changed the engine oil with 10/40 semi synthetic oil (always been ok on previous use), changed oil filter, air filter and cleaned out the emmision valve between the cam cover and inlet manifold, was not stuck and with slight shaking it rattles and if you turn it upside down and then back up you can hear the valve drop back on it’s seat, don’t know of this is nomal or if the spring is weak, no blockage in the pipe between the valve and inlet manifold or in the pipe between the cam cover and air cleaner/intake.
Any assitance would be appreciated as in all my 45 years experience with car engines I have never come across this problem.
Thank you SAZ9961 for the suggestion, I understand it is quite expensive to have the Greddy turbo repaired. I thought that if the turbo seal had gone, the engine would burn oil at other times and not just at idle speed, please correct me if I am wrong.
Can’t help I’m afraid but will be watching this thread with interest. My 1.8 NA does something similar and thought it was steam from the coolant making its way through the exhaust; still undecided but it’s a very light grey colour so could be the same.
Hopefully one of the engine gurus will come and help you (and me[;)])
I don’t know what its like in your engine compartment but if you can take off the inlet side of the turbo clean around it first, and if at all possible take off the exhaust side and try to move the turbo impellor shaft up and down, you would have to get the spec’s on the clearance that the turbo manufacture recommendes for this impellor, whilst its off you could look closley at the inside of the housing to see if there are any signs of rubbing a sure sign that the turbo’s on the way out, also check out the turbo oil drain return to the engine,or as you say you had been idling for some time you may have worn valve guides, I don’t know if the valves/guides have seals on these engines, I think either way it could be expensive so you would have to consider which would be the cheapest option to go for. Another possiblity is your engine oil viscoity to thin for the spec of engine i.e turbo some engine oils I am sure you understand have a detergent in it and it may be too searching for your engine, and being pulled into the cylinders.What does the inside of the inter cooler look like if its oily then the turbo will be passing oil.- new turbo and clean out inter cooler, lets know what you find hope this is of assistance to you.
Thanks Alan, looks like I am going to have to dig deeper, as soon as I get time i will have a look and post the results, at the moment I am sorting a difficult engine problem on my scorpio cosworth
Hi David, I’ll have a guess at valve stem oil seals, because as you have a turbo in will be producing positive pressure in the induction side at anything above 2,000 - 3,000rpm, below it will still be producing vacuum, which will pull oil through the seals. Same could be said for the turbo seal but as this oil feed is pressurized it should be leaking continuously.