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Old 09-03-2013, 05:59 AM
Werner240D Werner240D is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2013
Posts: 7
Unhappy Please help! 240D smoking and high fuel consumption

Hello everyone, I need your expert advice please. I'm from South Africa and recently bought a 1981 240D manual with 139 000 miles on the clock. When I bought the car it used to smoke a little blue when idling for a few minutes, hot or cold doesnt matter. It's also very heavy on diesel, not even getting close to 20mpg and thats with mixed driving, 60% highway 40% town.

It starts first time everytime and runs smooth, it is a little noisy on cold starts, it makes a clacking sound which appears to be coming from the valve train area, rockers maybe? I have adjusted the valves on the weekend, which were way out of spec and took it for a drive afterwards, car felt the same and was still smoking at idle rpms.

So, after that I drove the car warm to do an oil change and when I got home my father suggested we add 1 liter of diesel to the oil with the car idling for about 30 seconds to get all the old oil out which were very thick. Not too sure when the previous owner changed it but it wasnt recently thats for sure.

We drained the oil and filled it with 15W40 diesel oil and when we started the car the whole neighbourhood had a cloud of white/blue smoke over its head. My dad said that it will clear up but after driving the car for 80 miles it still smokes and I mean clouds of white/blue smoke, even when driving now, which never happend. I wish we never added the diesel, I think that have destroyed it or could it be something else?

I have checked the coolant and all seems well, definately not the head gasket.. I have read about the injection pump's timing, egr systems and vacuum pumps going bad on these cars but am slightly confused, the timing chain was never removed on this car so how can it just go out? Also, mine doesnt appear to have the egr system.

What I did noticed from the day I bought it is that there is oil in my vacuum pump line which only goes to the brake booster, mine doesnt go into the intake manifold like some others and it seems that the oil is only near the brake booster area and doesnt appear to be coming from the vacuum pump? What can this be,a failed brake booster perhaps? Brakes are still fine though..

I have attached a photo of the engine bay to show vacuum pipe.
If anyone can give me some advice it will be much appreciated as I have very little knowledge about these diesels. Starting to regret selling my 190E

Thank you for taking the time to read this post.
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