Surging and smoking

Have a problem with Mr. G the BJ73. Took it on a road trip on Sunday. ~10hours drive, ran & started fine that day.

Let it sit for a couple of days. Went to start it yesterday and white smoke billowed out of the tailpipe. It ran rough and surged a lot when cold and then not so much when it warmed up. Tonight I started it up and there was even more smoke & again it surged.

The truck has a 3B w/ rotary pump. The fuel filter was changed less than a year ago.

It has surged a bit since I bought it... occasionally, and hardly noticeable... and only happened when it was pretty cold out.

Bruce thought that maybe air was getting into the motor somehow, or perhaps that my coolant was low and may've pooched the head (I still get warm air out of the vents) but he wasn't sure and suggested I post my inquiry.

Anyone have any thoughts/suggestions? Much appreciated....

Either you have cracked the head or its a blown headgasket, more likely its a cracked head unfortunately. Check the oil for water in it.

a few questions first:
how often do you have to top up the cooling system and how much at a time?
how often do you experience coolant overheating on the gauge?
have you drained the filter and examined the fuel for Bruce.s infamous bug?
have you done a coolant pressure test?
i will try and diagnose your problem but i need a bit more info first.
cheers and sorry to hear the BJ is acting up. it really is a nice rig.

R2HKS said:

Either you have cracked the head or its a blown headgasket, more likely its a cracked head unfortunately. Check the oil for water in it.

Click to expand...

Checked oil. Looks normal. It's still fairly chilly up here...

crushers said:

a few questions first:
how often do you have to top up the cooling system and how much at a time?
how often do you experience coolant overheating on the gauge?
have you drained the filter and examined the fuel for Bruce.s infamous bug?
have you done a coolant pressure test?
i will try and diagnose your problem but i need a bit more info first.
cheers and sorry to hear the BJ is acting up. it really is a nice rig.

Click to expand...

1. I top it up every couple of months.. a little bit at a time. I had an air bubble in it for a bit. Also, there was a hose clamp that needed tightening. Since doing this it hasn't leaked. I topped up the coolant this morning. Didn't take much.

2. Not much anymore. But, it's been -40C a lot. More of an issue in summer.

3. No. I don't drive it much up here so it sits a lot.... hmm... what'd be the chances??


4. No pressure test.

Thanks for the help Wayne. I thought maybe it was just spewing lots of smoke at start up because the glow plugs are pooched.... but it's the surging that really concerns me.

Just a guess, what about the diaphragm? Is that a possibility?

I sorta remember mine acting like that right before it went....

Mind you, I am no expert.

Good luck.

Adam

rotory pumps don't have diaphrams...

Ratpuke said:

1. I top it up every couple of months.. a little bit at a time. I had an air bubble in it for a bit. Also, there was a hose clamp that needed tightening. Since doing this it hasn't leaked. I topped up the coolant this morning. Didn't take much.

2. Not much anymore. But, it's been -40C a lot. More of an issue in summer.

3. No. I don't drive it much up here so it sits a lot.... hmm... what'd be the chances??


4. No pressure test.

Thanks for the help Wayne. I thought maybe it was just spewing lots of smoke at start up because the glow plugs are pooched.... but it's the surging that really concerns me.

Click to expand...

i HIGHLY doubt it is a cracked head, try installing a elc feed pump right by the tank. i had a LJ that exibited the same symptoms and the feed pump seemed to cure the problem...
it could be something as simple as a bad tank of fuel...
cheers

I'm guessing its got a leak in the fuel line between the fuel filter and the injector pump and its drawing in air. Might even be the filter itself.

Pretty sure its air in the fuel.

Check the hose clamps at the t to the Webasto. Trouble shoot by pumping the primer. IF its hard to pump right away, theres's probably no air. if it starts easy for three or four pumps and then gets harder, its air.

Note to fellow troubleshooters, this rig has a rotary pump that is all the way across the engine bay from the primer which is on the Right fender. The pump returns excess fuel to the tank so if there was a leak it won't just stop the engine right away like a Canadian spec with an inline pump and no return.

ah, the dreaded "T" to the Wabasto. as you know Bruce i have had problems in this area as well... good suggestion.

lowenbrau said:

Pretty sure its air in the fuel.

Click to expand...

My vote for this option as well. So why not change your fuel filter ( pretty cheap ) and check for fuel leaks ( means air in the line ) and proper bleed the system .. I'm not sure if the rotory B engines are so touchy with air in the line .. but my 2H yes.

lets keep simple first...white smoke on start up when cold to me just means the glows arn't working perfectly.....or does this thing have a glow screen..?

white smoke only on start up is not fully combusting diesel... if it runs fine an all, your fluid levels are fine..

check out the glow system first.

Would glow plugs not working be responsible for the surging.... even after it's come up to temp?

Ratpuke said:

Would glow plugs not working be responsible for the surging.... even after it's come up to temp?

Click to expand...

no, but you could have two problems.

the smoke on start up could be bad glow.

the surge is a fuel/air problem..... maybe Bruce gave the truck the dreaded lurgy!


You might have an air leak into the fuel somewhere. How often is the surge?

You could try once the engine is up to temp, cracking the injector b nuts a little( maybe 1/4 turn) and see if any air comes comes out. Do one at a time. Air is really hard to get out of there.

I had to do tonnes of bleeding to get the air out of my injectors on my bj60.

brownbear said:

check out the glow system first.

Click to expand...

Brown bear beat me to it. Check the glow first if it's hard to start.

I don't think it's air in the fuel. I had the Webasto-fuel-in-the-T-line problem in Trippy. It has the same recirc back to the tank as Mr.G. No white smoke or anything... it would run nice, sputter and die. Then you need to re-prime. I've also had other leaky fuel related problems. Each time it would run clean, then just run out of fuel. White smoke is not an air in the fuel problem in my experience. Furthermore, when you crack the injectors to bleen air out of a system, does the exhaust ever go white? No... it caughs and sputters and runs like crap, but the exhaust is clean. A leak on the pressure side of the pump would make for bad running for sure, but not white smoke.

Definately not head gasket. It's almost impossible to blow one of these multi-layer steel cometic head gaskets on a NA engine. This is what the hot rodders are installing these days instead of o-ringed copper gaskets. Our little ole 3B's have had these since the 80's!
Very unlikely a cracked head. Only really possible to crack one this bad if it runs out of coolant. If you're blowing hot air from the fan, this is not it. Furthermore, if it was a crack and coolant was getting into the cylendars, it would smoke a bit at start until the coolant is cooked off, then run clean, then blow the coolant out the overflow tank and overheat. (Also had this happen to me).

What about timing? Nobody has mentioned timing. White smoke and terrible running can be a timing problem. But the smoke usually persists after it warms up. Does it continue to smoke and suck after it warms up? Strange that it would happen this suddenly, though. Well, maybe not.. Some previous symptoms may indicate an emerging problem... A 10 hour run, if the pump was wandering off it's timing but the engine was at operating temp you might not notice it until the next cold start. Grab the injection pump and see if you can wiggle it. I assume timing on a rotary pump is set by rotating the pump just like an in-line pump?

I am betting on Timing. Advance the Timing.

Otehr ideas... Could it be fouled injectors? Bad fuel? Where did you last get fuel?

Peter Straub

my advice for the surge is an air leak to the injectors.

IMOP air leaks do not cause white smoke. only excess fuel cause white smoke or bad timing. But if you run fine other than occasional surge, I would not feel timing.

But air entering the system is a definate possiblity.

IMOP white smoke are unburn fuel .. blocked air filter, poor O % it occurs always in my case at cold ( relative for me ) starts ..

Brownbear wrote: ..."the surge is a fuel/air problem..... maybe Bruce gave the truck the dreaded lurgy! You might have an air leak into the fuel somewhere. How often is the surge?"

Bruce hasn't fondled Mr. G for quite sometime. ;p

The surge is occurring more often and entirely disappears after the truck has been running for about half an hour or so. When cold and semi-cold the surge happens fairly often - say about 4x per city block.

Behemoth60 wrote: "But the smoke usually persists after it warms up. Does it continue to smoke and suck after it warms up?"

No. Eventually it goes away. Since the road trip it's taken a lot longer though. I thought this weird as the temps have been warmer outside so I'd have thought the opposite.

Strange that it would happen this suddenly, though. Well, maybe not.. Some previous symptoms may indicate an emerging problem...

Agree. No other 3Bs I've driven have surged like mine has since I got it.


Otehr ideas... Could it be fouled injectors? Bad fuel? Where did you last get fuel?


Esso in Hythe, AB


Will experiment with Mr. G. tonight and see what I find.... Thanks guys for the input.

for the surge, look for an air leak. Find the return line from the injectors, install a clear tube. back to the pump(if it reutrns back to the injector pump) you might be able to see air bubbles flowing back.

Also Try re-bleeding everything.

For the white smoke on start up. Try cycling the key on and off a couple times before engaging the starter to see if the extra heat prevents some smoke. I know when I had a stock superglow on my BJ60 I could cycle a couple times to get the glowplugs extra hot and that helped the start quite a bit. Going to a manual set up has made it so I can get perfect starts. I just glow extra long on cold mornings. Well worth it..