Stand behind it while it's smoking if it's white smoke it should have a distinct deisel odor. that means incomplete combustion ,bad rings? IP timing,
or chain strecth can cause it , I always start with the simple one first which would be IP timing , bumping It worked for me, of course the drip method is the correct method to do IP timing..........

William Rogers...........

My case is a little different becuase I ran my Oil Low due to a pinched breather Hose.
My Car at 300K miles was fine until then though it had other issues causing poor performance. Now I have a lot of the performance issues solved, but I got smoke which I never had before running the oil low.
I am in the middle of a series of tests to solve the smoke. It may be quite simply worn rings. I DID GET NEW INJECTORS. My compression after the oil loss was 330 to 360, and my oil pressure at idle is 1.8 bars

I DO NOTICE this. When the engine is cold, the car starts off like a 2,000,000 ton Cargo ship. When its warm I can literally feel things to Pep up.

I NEED HELP TOO

I am not being a wise guy, but I wonder how the timing can be ever that messed up.

If you advance it too much, you cant make your fuel pump linkages work and get full play.

And if you retard it too much, your piping wont fit back on no matter how much you try.

Also there are starting issues and vibration that you will notice anyway.

Here's the story ,my 74 240 D 'Pearl' (my first Mercedes) defines the term "been around the block"
and had survived several teen age drivers before I got her.

Pearl smoked a bit when I bought her but being new to diesels I did not worry about it till after many miles and years of driving the white smoke got to the point where it became undriveable . I parked it and bought an 81 SD "Goldie aka Belle"

One day a mechanic friend stopped by and I started Pearl to show him the smoke , we talked about the diesel odor of the smoke then decided to bump the pump toward the the engine just to see what would happen .We could not get the bottom bolt loose so we loosened the other two and with a heavy hammer and a piece of heavy square stock we bumped the IP (lines attached) toward the engine block a small inkerment at a time the smoke lessened with each bump and the enginer smoothed out till there was no more smoke than my non smoking SD I put Pearl back on insurance and drive her mainly on the back roads where we live...........


William Rogers........

Injection timing is fairly important. It will be late due to timing chain wear and some pump wear, also the timer can wear too.

Worst case someone has set it with the engine in dubious condition without replacing the chain, or with the timer stuck, so that it is way off when everything else is OK.

If there is evidence the pump has been pulled and replaced, it could have bein installed improperly, too, and that is a real crapshoot.

A diesel can actually run with the timing almost 180 degrees out if you have enough fuel vapor in the cumbustion chamber when the heat is high enough, but it will smoke terribly.

Best to check.

Excessive blowby is when you get large puffs like a locomotive at idle. Usually a result of worn out or stuck rings. Occasionally, resetting the timing correctly and changing to synthetic oil will free the rings and restore compression, but usually the cylinder walls are worn out and it needs rebuilding.

Worn out injectors will cause trouble, too.

Peter

__________________
1972 220D ?? miles
1988 300E 200,012
1987 300D Turbo killed 9/25/07, 275,000 miles
1985 Volvo 740 GLE Turobodiesel 218,000
1972 280 SE 4.5 165, 000 - It runs!

I'm getting quite an education. Thanks folks. Will keep you posted.

__________________
Matt Camara
'83 300SD
'85 Celica
'98 Harley Springer Softail

Well... Here's the deal.

I have monstrous blowby. Not so bad at first, but when she gets hot, the valve cover tube chugs like a locomotive. (psfred is the winner of the mink beer koozie) The mechanic thinks that we may have a chance at salvation by changing the injectors (done) and keeping the rpm's up when I'm driving to free up ring gunk. We disconnected the breather tube from the air filter. Runs like a gasser. Very little smoke.

Troubleshooting went something like this:

1. Drive car in default configuration. Oil smoke. Could not duplicate my mosquito fogger symptom.

2. Check for puffing at valve cover. A bit excessive.

3. Run the hell out of it. Puffing like hell and doggie. (poor acceleration).

4. Remove breather tube and run the hell out of it. Smoother and with much less smoke.

5. Replaced injectors and checked that loosening the fuel lines on each injector made a difference with the idle. Based on this test, there are no "dead holes".

6. Run the hell out of it. This thing comes close to hauling ass.

7. My instructions are to keep the RPM's up and check the oil level. It's not using any so far. Not leaking as much either. This is with the breather tube disconnected.

8. If this doesn't work, lower end trouble. He says he's snatched a few from the brink of death by using this program. He seems to have a genuine love for these cars and a knowledge of their history. He even made a house call in "The Worlds Fastest 240D".
It had a 6 cylinder twin cam shoe horned in it. But was still badged as a 240D.

Thanks for all your help. Sorry I took so long for the follow up. Replies are always welcome.

Matt

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Matt Camara
'83 300SD
'85 Celica
'98 Harley Springer Softail

I recently bought a 1987 300D. For a while I thought the turbo was dead, I mean this is supposed to be one powerful car, its a 6 cylinder Turbo that should do 100 easy...

Thsi morning I opened it up WIDE OPEN ...smoke came out of the tail like crazy, then suddenly the car accelerated like crazy!!! and the smoke cleared up....now the car really cruises

It was previous;y driven by a housewife...