Driving along normally going up a hill and all of a sudden this little thing revs ways high and starts blowing a huge cloud of white smoke, I turn the key off and its stays revving high and smoking. I pull over and it finally dies a few seconds after. I pop the hood, everything's normal, look under the car-everythings normal... wait for a minute then try a restart, it starts fine, revs high but starts fine and still smokes so I shut it down again and try to take a closer look at the engine and underneath..nothing again...I almost get done dialing the parents to come and get me, then I try to start it again and it runs fine, very little smoke. Ok, we'll I'll try to drive it home. It runs fine but it left quite a smoke screen at times, only did it under load so everytime I was going down a hill I would just put it in neutral and let it coast. The smoke didn't smell like antifreeze and not really like oil, trans fluid or clutch. It could have been a mixture of everything but it didn't seem like one distinct smell.

BTW the car is a '85 VW Jetta 1.6L Diesel N/A, 5spd manual. I NEED this beater to get me around and would like this fixed ASAP. Thanks.

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no one?

 

Sorry it took awhile....

White smoke usually occurs when there is not enough temperature to burn the fuel. The unburned fuel particles are then exhausted usually by a rich fuel smell. In cold weather it is not uncommon to get white smoke until engine temperature builds up. One cause of white smoke on engine start up could be faulty glow plugs or glow plug system. Low engine cranking speed can also create an excessive amount of white smoke.

If the problem persists after the engine is up to operating temperature several other things should be checked. A faulty injector can cause white smoke. Timing is often a factor when white smoke is excessive. Low engine compression can cause the problem and the injection pump can also have problems that result in white smoke. Air in the fuel system can also result in white smoke.

 

I know that, but it wasn't do to with the "regular" white smoke problems... On another board a guy said sometimes when these engines get tired they will push oil through the crankcase vent tube and straight into the intake, so my partial runaway was because of raw oil going into the intake..I've also been told it also happens when you overfill on oil as well just for future reference. Thanks for the help though Evil

 

Should of followed that with - I dont know anything about VW's

So, what youre saying is that you need to do a rebuild.

 

Well, we'll see what a compression test and a leakdown tells me in a couple days because after I put my homemade blow-by tube on, it runs 100%....I'm not really partial to this hydraulic lifter business but maybe its the best thing goin and I just dont know it..Anyway time will tell I guess..

 

OK, will close this for now - and you can reopen it in the future if you want/need to.