Club 80-90 Forums

My wonderful 'new' van produces a large “James Bond"| style white cloud when I start from cold. I really don't have the money to replace the engine at the moment so I was wondering if anyone can offer advice?

It's a 1.6td with unknown mileage. It runs really nicely, pulls well and doesn't smoke under load. There's no smoke (or choking cloud!) when it's started from warm, or even at lunchtime after sitting for 4 hours. But when I start in the morning I get black looks from the neighbours and at night my work colleagues point and laugh.

Is there a step by step elimination I can follow to find out the cause? I'm thinking head gasket (it does use a little water) but there's no sign of anything in the oil, or any oil in the water.

There's no smoke without fire!

My old 1.6 td was smokey on start up and so is my newly rebuilt 1.9td

Think your ok as long as it's not smoking all the time, thats when you worry about it

I just can see us being stoned to death if we we start up in the morning and choke everyone eating their crispies in the great outdoors!

As it starts fine from warm, my first suspiscion would be that one or two of the glowplugs are on the way out.

Do the pre-glow a few times (without starting) and check if they're all getting warm.

Sounds like a classic simptoms of a partly failed preheating system. Does it missfire or sound really lumpy in the first 10 second after cold start? One day soon the other heaterplugs will fail aswell (you've probubly already got 2 out) and then it won't be easy to start at all.

Remady, change all 4 - doesn't cost too much and saves you the effort of working out which have actully broken and which still work (but will fail within the month causeing the problem to reocour) - bin them all, regain reliability! 4 new plugs should have it starting hapilly for atleast the next couple of years.

As you say its a 'new' van, are you aware of the unlabled "cold Start" leaver on the dash below the heater controls? Its a big stiff pull out cable thing that's resionably camoflarged. It does things to the injector pump and makes the engine noticably happyer on cold start - its often overlooked as not everyone knows it even exists - use it if you don't already! (this might help improve cold starting with a broken heaterplug but that doesn't mean it'll buy you extra time before repair - if all plugs fail you'll still be in trouble!)

my van does the exact same, 1.9 1Y diesel and smokes like hell on startup but clears within 10sec after the lumpy running. Thats the only time you see any plumes coming from the back.

Recently been a hell of a lot harder to start so will be changing all the heater plugs when i get a chance.

Thanks all. as usual a goldmine of advice!

btw, it is good practice to pull the "choke" on every start up.

You don't really need to, but it helps to make the first few turns of the engine less lumpy, even when it's not freezing outside.

I've made it my habit to pull the choke before I turn off the engine ..that way it's always on when I start. Once I'm second gear, I push it in again.

(Plus the little bugger moves much easier when the engine is running for some reason)

Check the glowplug relays and pull the cold start lever out. Mine was similar at first til i got the hang of it. Hope thats all it is usually is..

mattc wrote:My wonderful 'new' van produces a large “James Bond"| style white cloud when I start from cold. I really don't have the money to replace the engine at the moment so I was wondering if anyone can offer advice?

It's a 1.6td with unknown mileage. It runs really nicely, pulls well and doesn't smoke under load. There's no smoke (or choking cloud!) when it's started from warm, or even at lunchtime after sitting for 4 hours. But when I start in the morning I get black looks from the neighbours and at night my work colleagues point and laugh.

Is there a step by step elimination I can follow to find out the cause? I'm thinking head gasket (it does use a little water) but there's no sign of anything in the oil, or any oil in the water.

There's no smoke without fire!

if you insist on using the devils fuel with a turbo, smoke is compulsary