Smoke. Clouds and clouds of smoke. 1984 300sd

[angst]

84 300sd
It is smoking ridiculous amounts. I have to turn it off at a stoplight to not be enveloped in smoke.

Earlier this winter it was smoking a bit and also had a clanky hammering/nailing noise in the engine.
I did the valves and ran a Diesel Purge can via the looped bottle method and changed the filters.
The noise seemed to settle down but the smoking continued.

Now in the warmer weather it is no longer making hammering bad engine sounds but the smoke is eco-terrorist levels.
The smoke is white to gray-ish. Black smoke only during hard acceleration.
It does not seem to be consuming oil or water. The underside of the oil cap is regular black color.
Holding a piece of paper at the exhaust it doesn't get wet or black.

I've tried the following recently:
Take a bit of motor oil out so that the level with a cold engine and dipstick wiped once is level with the top of the range.
Cleaned the banjo bolt and line to the alda,
Left the fuel cap off and drove around.
Loosened each of the 17mm bolts on the injectors one at a time. Each one will change the sound of the idle (lowers it).
Changed the primary filter again (goldenrod bowl type)
Search smoke topics here on the forum.
Open hood and stare at engine blankly.

Repeating the last two steps over and over again.

I'm feeling a bit lost and scared this could be the end of an old friend as this seems like some serious internal engine bad mojo that is beyond my ability.

What should I try next to diagnose this?

[Brian Carlton]

Originally Posted by angst

.
The smoke is white to gray-ish.



It does not seem to be consuming oil or water.

It is impossible to develop that much smoke without consuming either oil or water.

Your first assignment is to determine which is it............

The smell of burning oil is unmistakeable.

The smell of coolant going through the combustion is less noticable but will still impart a noticeable sweet smell to the exhaust.

[ah-kay]

I suspect it is the turbo. My friend's SD was a smoke machine until the turbo was replaced.

[Phillytwotank]

I chuckled a bit thinking of your last two steps of diagnosis. Benz there done that a few times myself.

Possible that you have an injector that is totally shot.

[angst]

It is impossible to develop that much smoke without consuming either oil or water.
Your first assignment is to determine which is it.

On further reflection I have added water on occasions. I've been maybee 500 miles since the smoke started and I've added 4 to 6 cups. I don't log these small top ups in my maintenance notes so I don't really know how often I have done that historically but I would say I add that much a couple times a year at least.
Over the past couple years it is probably transitioned to a high ratio of water to antifreeze now. Ill go run and get some mo' antifreeze now so a sweet smell will be apparent if its burning.

I suspect it is the turbo. My friend's SD was a smoke machine until the turbo was replaced.

will peering into the turbo at the intake tell me anything about it's health?

[Simpler=Better]

Originally Posted by angst

Open hood and stare at engine blankly.

My favorite diagnostic step :p

To check the turbo, with the car off try to wiggle the impeller. It should go side to side a little, but "no" play forward and back.

Is your air filter completely plugged to the point of restricting air?

[kerry]

Smoke diagnoses require a video.

[angst]

To check the turbo, with the car off try to wiggle the impeller. It should go side to side a little, but "no" play forward and back

It checks out. About 1/8th inch play side to side or up and down but no play pushing or pulling.

Is your air filter completely plugged to the point of restricting air

very recent cleaning of K+N filter. Made a big project of it actually because I couldn't get it completely white.

Smoke diagnoses require a video

I just went out and shot some. Will try get a short digestible clip of it cut up and uploaded to dropbox or youtube or something as soon as I can.

Smoke didn't seem as bad while I was out filming and driving but I was waved down by a car beside me on the road and told "sir, your bumper is on fire"

[angst]

look out Tarantino. After a hard night of video editing I have this 1 minute choppy horror show of bad cuts. clips of the smoke.
True to showing up at the mechanic syndrome it is actually not smoking all that bad in the video, but you can see the color.

[Brian Carlton]

Originally Posted by angst

look out Tarantino. After a hard night of video editing I have this 1 minute choppy horror show of bad cuts. clips of the smoke.
True to showing up at the mechanic syndrome it is actually not smoking all that bad in the video, but you can see the color.

The color is whitish/grey.............but, we already knew that from the original description.

Go down to the exhaust pipe and smell the smoke............report back with results. Either it's coolant, or it's oil. I'm sure you can determine which.

[Stretch]

Is all the smoking coming out of the back of the car or does it come from the front too?

[angst]

Brian, here is the link to my scratch and sniff sample...
OK, there is no scratch and sniff sample.

There is no sweetness to the smell at all. Any coolant in there is masked well by more powerful forces.
Oil smell? Maybe. It doesn't have any of the distinctive burnt oil smell like you smell when someone has blown a head gasket. It is really smelly though. Like smellier than you would expect just fuel to be.
Wouldn't there be more sooty blackness coming out of the exhaust if it was oil? If you hold a paper up to the exhaust it does not turn black or wet.
Video clip of paper held up to exhaust right after car started. https://www.dropbox.com/s/a26zhf52rv7jneb/paperexhaust.mp4

Do you think it could be fuel? I haven't fiddled with pump timing or linkage settings. I found a thread last night talking about if pump timing is off it will make for partially combusted fuel and lots of white-ish smoke.

is all the smoking coming out of the back of the car or does it come from the front too

there are some holes in the exhaust 3/4ths of the way back so the smoke kind of wafts up all over. There doesn't seem to be any smoke coming directly from the engine that I have noticed.

[vstech]

is it hard to start? the chain stretch could be SOOOOO far retarding the pump that it's just BARELY getting the fuel in on the compression stroke... and mostly unburned fuel is being exhausted...

[Stretch]

This whole black smoke, white smoke, blue smoke thing seems to be best described here

Diesel Engine Smoke Explained - United Diesel, Shropshire

[angst]

That's a pretty nice little reference there. Using that prompts me to mention some things that seem relevant now.

It is not really hard to start after an overnight sit. After it is warm it is just as easy starting as any gasser with no glow plug time needed.
I did find that the turbo wastegate hose was loose yesterday but that was fixed before I took the vids.
It does seem to lack power particularly at low rpm. It's hard to say for sure though since it is inherently kind of like that anyway.

Do y'all agree my smoke is mostly white?
according to that link

White Smoke
Normally means that the fuel injected into the cylinder is not burning correctly. The smoke will burn your eyes.
Engine/pump timing out
Fuel starvation to the pump causing the pumps timing not to operate correctly
Low engine compression
Water/petrol in the fuel

in that vein of thinking:
The smoke certainly irritates your throat.
There is always some air in my big goldenrod filter lately that I can't seem to purge. There is a flaw in the threads that could be letting some air in. Could an air leak into the fuel cause this?

What about timing? Is investigating the timing chain or pump timing my next step?