Hi all. I'm new to posting on this forum but have been reading for about a year now. Also I use to be a Mechanic for a few years so I kind of know how to spin a wrench. The question I have is: I have a 1983 300Sd with around 250,000 miles. Car ran great, that is until I changed the valve cover gasket and the oil filter housing gasket. Both were simple jobs and I did them both at once so I couldn't tell you what I did wrong. All I can say is that now after starting and attempting to drive the car I get a smoke screen. After it warms up its worse. Sitting at a light it's pumping out white/blue tint smoke. Alot...I've been running it over and over in my head. I think I can rule out the oil filter housing gasket, that was only 4 or 5 hex's and the pressure sending unit and the turbo line. When I did take off the valve cover I did have to disconnect alot of vac. lines and disconnect the linkage for the fuel delivery. Also before this job the car blue hardly any smoke, unless going up hill. Any help would be great. I did check the oil and no there is no water or coolant in there also coolant level is still the same. The smoke doesn't smell like oil or coolant or unburn diesel. Please help.
Rob

Welcome to the forum. I have been trying to imagine what could have gone wrong with your car, and the only thing that comes to me so far would be that in taking off and replacing the valve cover you could maybe, possibly , might have, long shot, have bumped a valve seal that came apart.
As you might have gathered that is not sounding too very likely. More likely suspects would be the vacuum pump coincidently lost a seal at the same time. Not too many things in these engines that will cause those symptoms, short of some very bad mechanicals, or maybe a strange problem IP gone berserk. Usually fuel overload produces black smoke. White/blue ?

There are a couple of threads from the past few months that might be relevant if you do a search. There are two places I can think the oil might be coming from. One is the breather hose going out of the valve cover and into the air cleaner. Remove it and see if it makes a difference. There was also some speculation on those previous threads that the oil return line on the separator has a one way valve where it enters the oil pan, and perhaps this valve has failed and oil is being sucked back up that line and into the intake.

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

I don't know if this will help, but you should read it as FYI.

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/showthread.php?p=707523&posted=1#post707523

__________________
ASE Master Mechanic
asemastermechanic@juno.com

Prototype R&D/testing:
Thermal & Aerodynamic System Engineering (TASE) Senior vehicle instrumentation technician.
Noise Vibration and Harshness (NVH).
Dynamometer.
Heat exchanger durability.
HV-A/C Climate Control.
Vehicle build.
Fleet Durability
Technical Quality Auditor.
Automotive Technical Writer

1985 300SD
1983 300D
1984 190D
2003 Volvo V70
2002 Honda Civic

https://www.boldegoist.com/

Thanks for the info. After going through the whole thing in my head, the only thing I could come up with was the turbo. So I have a parts car 300D and I took the turbo off of that and replaced it on my SD and no more smoke. I'm thinking when I changed the oil filter housing gasket and disconnected the turbo oil feed line that it drained the oil out of the turbo, and when I hooked it all back up I should have somehow primed the turboline with oil. Because my best guess is that it ran dry and blew the seal. So thank you all for your help.
Rob

There is no valve in the oil return line (at least not on my 240D) and no reason I can think of for one, it's just a gravity return drain. That said, I had my oil/air seperator off and checked it out, my opinion it is a very poor design and removes less then 10% of the oil passing through to intake. I did remove my down pipe from the seperator to the oil pan and replace it with clear plastic tubbing and it never has any really noticable amount of oil in the line unless I'm on the highway at 55+ MPH, and then it's not that much. That means most of the oil goes through the seperator without ever being seperated fro the air flow and it just goes into the intake. I can putz around town and not use any oil, but put the rpm's up for highway cruising and it sucks the stuff like crazy. The VW TDI's do the same thing and the CCV filter I designed puts the brakes on that oil going into the intake.

I'm thinking about just removing the seperator, pluging the intake port, and running a tube straight from valve cover to oil pan for awhile. I am still trying to get local machine shop to build a proper CCV filter for these cars, but nothing has happened as yet.

__________________
'10 Chrysler T&C Stow-N-Go White. Grandpa's ride.

'13 Chrysler 200 Touring Candy Red. Grandma's ride.

Age and cunning will always over come youth and vigor.

I'm pretty sure I looked at a diagram that showed a valve at the very bottom of the oil return tube on either the 616 or 617. It's there to stop oil from getting pushed into the intake if the crankcase ever builds up pressure or the vacuum in the intake gets high.

Is there a procedure in the manual for priming the turbo? It doesn't seem as though changing the oil filter housing gasket is that much different than changing the oil. Running the motor at idle for a few seconds should get oil to the turbo bearings in a hurry.

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

There is none on the 616 (240D), it just has a hollow tube/bolt that sticks up with an O'ring and the other tube comes down flairs and fits over the tube that sticks up. The O'rings often go bad an has the car leaking oil from this connection and blowing all back over the underside of motor. Remember I'm also talking about a US model, not an import.

Also remember you have a dipstick that will vent any pressure from the oilpan on turbo or NA, so worrying about is non realistic. The vacuum isn't going to get any higher, there's no turbo to increase any vacuum off the intake on 240D & 300 NA motors. The only way you can have a sudden increase in sump oil into these two engines is burn a hole in piston, break a ring, or massive over fill of oil sump, then the CCV will feed the oil into the intake. If that happens you got worse problems then what your refering to.

__________________
'10 Chrysler T&C Stow-N-Go White. Grandpa's ride.

'13 Chrysler 200 Touring Candy Red. Grandma's ride.

Age and cunning will always over come youth and vigor.

There are a number of past threads in which pressure increasing in the crankcase and consumption of oil via the intake are recorded. I'm not sure the precise causes of those events were ever determined. However, the dipstick tube does end below the level of the oil in the sump, so if order for it to relieve pressure, it will have to blow out oil at the same time. There are also threads that describe that happening. But I think pressure will back up the oil return tube faster than it increases enough on the surface of the oil in the sump to force it out the dipstick tube. Perhaps in the instances where it was forced out the dipstick tube, there was a one-way valve in the oil return line.

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

As far as my 240D and most cars go, the dipstick tube does not go down into the oilpan. I know because I was looking at the system this morning on my CD and saw the remove and install process. I have heard that the newer MB's have the dipstick & oilpan designed to be used with siphon to remove oil, instead of draining.

I don't think my friends '68 GTO had any one way oil return valves in the thing. When he sealed the CCV the car blew the dipstick out with a bunch of oil. Man you are just making things more complicated then they are, stop and think about what you are saying. We are talking about, or at least I am, is a simple gravity return line that's not pressurized. Anyway have fun and try to enjoy your MB.

__________________
'10 Chrysler T&C Stow-N-Go White. Grandpa's ride.

'13 Chrysler 200 Touring Candy Red. Grandma's ride.

Age and cunning will always over come youth and vigor.

I'm not making it complicated at all. I understand the tube is not pressurized. If the valve is there (and I believe I looked at a picture which showed it), it's there because the top end of the end is exposed to vacuum under some conditions.
The pictures I have seen of the oil dipstick tube do not show the dipstick sticking out the end of the tube, hence the oil must go up the tube. In fact, someone posted a note the other day explaining that there is a small hole partway down the dipstick tube to relieve pressure as the dipstick is inserted so that oil is not artificially pushed lower in the tube than the rest of the sump as a result of the air pushing down the tube.
Someone had a thread last week. She had stripped the oil drain plug and had to remove the pan to fix it. She posted pictures of the engine w/o the pan on. I believe that in those pictures you can see the dipstick tube extending downward into the oil w/o the dipstick sticking out. Here's the link:

http://webwench.net/gallery/mb-oops1/CIMG1188

I have no idea about GTO's.

The issue is not simply theoretical to me. I once had an 67 Austin Healey Sprite that was sucking HUGE amounts of oil into the intake as a result of a failed valve in the PCV system. 1950's Fords had a similar problem but they tended to suck ATF into the intake via the vacuum system when a membrane failed.

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

What the heck are we talking about here anyway. I think we lost track of the orginal posting of the thread.

__________________
'10 Chrysler T&C Stow-N-Go White. Grandpa's ride.

'13 Chrysler 200 Touring Candy Red. Grandma's ride.

Age and cunning will always over come youth and vigor.

Back to the topic. The line from the oil filter housing to the turbo is the first place the oil goes to when it is filtered. I think it's oil pressure the pushes it up to the turbo. I don't think it was a freaky cowinkidink that the seal went on the turbo after I had to drain the oil filter housing to change the gasket. I did remove that line and oil did come out. After the fact, next time, some how I will prime the line with oil prior to starting the car. Again thanks for the help.
Rob

I think I my have a similiar problem because after installing a rebuilt turbo and injectors and cleaning the intake on my 1982 300TD, I'm getting a heavy light colored smoke when revving the engine. While the car smoked some before at idle and when cold it did not smoke heavily when revving after it was warmed up. I did put a little oil in the turbo when I installed it but didn't prime the oil line. However, I did idle the engine for several minutes before revving it. I'm not sure if there is anyway to test for a blown oil seal outside of removing the turbo and putting the old one back on. The exhaust does not smell like it would on a gas engine burning engine oil. Also it is more white than blue or black.

One thing that makes me question that the turbo is causing the problem is that the engine was very hard to start and ran very rough initially after I did this work. Before I installed the turbo I cleaned out the intake and scraped off some of the crud around the intake ports (a heavy tar-like substance) and sprayed them down with carb cleaner. I got very low compression compression readings (120psi) aferwards whereas before the compression was acceptable at about 270psi. This has me thinking that I may have gotten some crud on the valves which is interfering with their sealing?

q45denver,

White smoke is usually unburned Diesel fuel which could be caused by low compression not creating enough heat to ignite the fuel. You might check the valve clearance and if it is greater than nominal, you are probably correct about the valves not closing all the way and leaking causing the lower compression readings and misfiring.

P E H