Thread: white smoke and runs on 4 cylinders when cold

It's possible that you are getting air in the system and that's what's causing the issue, is it better if you have a full tank?

White smoke can also be coolant in the combustion chamber, so the cracked head/ failed head gasket scenario is possible, but of course would be using/losing coolant.

This smoke is evident at the first start after the engine has been off for a number of hrs, like overnight, or off for a couple days then started at the warmest part of the day as temperature will make very little difference, maybe try this?

Do you EVER have to top up the coolant?

Cheers
James

Edit:
You will find it pretty difficult to get those injectors tested, certainly hard in Australia. And of course wonky injectors don't come good when the engine gets hot, although a hot engine will help some deficiencies with a marginal injector, I'd be pursuing other stuff tbh.

white exhaust smoke is a common indicator of injector/injection problems

expert advice is where I'd be looking

I seriously doubt the issue is head/gasket related, if the problem lessens with temperature. The opposite would justify further investigation.

The photos of an injector that you posted to me look oil fouled unless you started from cold then quickly removed the injectors.
My TD5 EU3 injectors when removed had carbon on them but not liquid oil.
It may be that the compression on one cylinder is down, this stops compression when cold but has enough when warm.
The usual way to take compression is to remove the glow plugs , and then you only get 4 cylinders. It of course may not be no 5 that is the problem. We are just assuming that as it does not have a glow plug.

A look down through the injector seats with a camera may also give more clues.
Regards PhilipA

I've had a "failing" head gasket on my td5 before, the first signs were:

rough idle when started after an overnight sit- until the coolant burnt out of the combustion chamber,

the burning coolant smell,

white smoke (again-until the coolant burnt /got blown out ) and lastly

gradual lessening of the coolant level over the course of several months.

Cheers
James

Originally Posted by shack

It's possible that you are getting air in the system and that's what's causing the issue, is it better if you have a full tank?

Unfotunetly i forgot to check that, I had half a tank when i noticed the problem

Originally Posted by shack

This smoke is evident at the first start after the engine has been off for a number of hrs, like overnight, or off for a couple days then started at the warmest part of the day as temperature will make very little difference, maybe try this?

Do you EVER have to top up the coolant?

The smoke is evident when engine gets cold, it doesnt matter if it's couple hours or day, although it wasn't sitting for longer than 2 days without running.

I have to top up coolant sometimes (very rarely) because i have small leak from the plug that is located behind exhaust manifold. I will try to fix it asap and see if the problem dissapeared

There is no smell of coolant at all and the coolant itself looks clean

Originally Posted by ramblingboy42

white exhaust smoke is a common indicator of injector/injection problems

expert advice is where I'd be looking

I would love to get this car to some LR expert, but there are none even relatively close to me unfortunetly



The injectors look wet, because they are covered in diesel, I forgot to remove fuel line before removing the first injector and there was still some fuel in the head, my bad
but before removing injectors i removed glow plug from the nr 1 cylinder and it looked great


Thank you for your replies, i'm more and more convinced that the issue was caused by faulty washers, I will be 100% sure during weekend.

Cheers, Maciej!

Use an ir fun on the exhaust to see which cylinder is not working.

I wanted to do this job properly, so i ordered an OEM (or at least marked as one) kit that includes injectors and rocker shaft bolts, all the seals and rollers, and what i got was... sad. Some kind of lunatic put everything in one bag, so the copper washers and rollers are mangled and i don't really trust this bolts neither.

Thankfully i have all the washers and seals from some other source, so i still can do this job, just without new bolts.