Oil flecks, leaks and puffs of smoke?

[TMRAVEN]

Hi all.
I have a 1.6L Water cooled Turbo Diesel T25(T3) and before Christmas it got a service (oil filter and oil changed, diesel system treatment and air filter). Since then it has sat under it's new van port awaiting spring (apart from one 9 mile gentle 30mph round trip) for which I had to re-charge the battery as I expected I probably would.
Yesterday we had a large ebay purchase to pick up which meant a 37 mile round trip along the motorway. So I used it to give her a bit of a work out varied the speed between 55 and 70 mph (still getting used to driving her as we only got her the tail end of last year). The journey went fine although on two occasions (once on the way and once coming back) I did notice what appeared to be smoke coming from the exhaust for under a minute, being new to vans and diesel I thought perhaps the engine was just clearing some much out after the winter stand. The performance seemed fine (as far as I can tell being a novice at driving these) and we arrived there and home again safely.
However when we got home and the van was parked up my mother-in-law noticed oil dripping under the engine (she is a real worrier so I knew I needed to fine out an answer for her as to why this was), it was dripping from several areas and on opening the engine bay it was clear that there was oil in the plate under the engine which was dripping through the various holes in it. It seemed to be worse on the left hand side as you look at the van from the rear.
There were also fine specks of oil splattered all over the rear of the van.
Being a total novice I have come here to ask if any of you have ideas about what the problem could be. There was no oil leaking over winter, so (a search around the internet which gave me some ideas) could it be that the garage over filled the oil (previously it had been very low and had triggered the buzzer of doom) causing to burn oil (oil flecks from oil in exhaust fumes?) and push some excess out of the engine in the bay?
Any thoughts you have will be much appreciated, thanks

E D I T: Extra information is that after having checked the oil today it is showing at the minimum dot (I believe there is a litre between minimum and maximum)...could it conceivably lost over a litre of fuel since before our trip yesterday?
Also on checking the coolant expansion tank it is about a cm under minimum (this will teach me to ensure I check both oil and water levels before every trip, especially after a long lay up). Could lack of water mean that the oil had to work harder to keep the engine cool?

[TMRAVEN]

No one have any ideas on this?

[lefty67]

I'm no mechanic but firstly I would be checking that you don't have a coolant leak somewhere.
Oil could be a number of things ie rocker cover, dipstick tube seal, front or rear camshaft\crankshaft seal (which was the cause of oil splatter on my tailgate ) etc
give the engine a damn good clean and see if you can narrow down where its leaking from

[carthago ian]

I had a oil leak on my JX the only way to find the problem was to remove the sound proofing tin wear from under the engine, clean the engine & wait , I didn't need to wait too long to see a drip from the bottom of the oil filler tube, the top is PVC the bottom half metal,
is was a stress fracture I believe caused by worn out exhaust mounting brackets in fact they had split in half, so I replace all of them, whilst at it replaced the engine mounting rubbers & the rubber on the engine mounting bar . Managed to get a second hand oil filler tube . The sound absorber soaked up a lot of the oil making identifying the leak near impossible with the tin wear in place

[chrisbeck]

Check the turbo oil feed pipe, they fracture and spray oil about

[Middle29]

Turbo oil feed came off mine after a long run - lots of spots of oil all over the back door

[TMRAVEN]

Thanks for your replies folks, sorry for not getting back to you sooner.
I topped up the oil and coolant as advised by the chap at the garage that I use. He said he thought some of the seals may have lost some flexibility over the long winter lay up and said I should take it on a few gentle runs out (20 to 30 miles doing up to 60 mph), which I have done and so far no oil flecks or oil leaks since. So fingers crossed it may have just been me not breaking it in gently enough?

[TMRAVEN]

So, it turns out it wasn't just me pushing the van too hard on the first trip of the year.
Today, whilst we were heading to the start point of our car club's Drive It Day trip out, the white smoke returned and stayed this time...then was accompanied by the buzzer of doom. We pulled over as soon as we could and the oil was dripping profusely from the sound proofing plate under the engine. Called the RAC out and it turns out that the Turbo oil feed had snapped where it enters the turbo...I can only assume that previously it had a crack in it causing it to smoke only on the two occasions, but today it finally gave up the ghost.
I can only hope that we pulled over quick enough to ensure there was no damage to the turbo charger.
I believe this is the part I need to get...wish me luck!
http://www.justkampers.com/068-145-771- ... -1992.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;