projekt

i recently noticed in the moring a decent amount of smoke coming from my exhaust. it's white and smells sweet(sort of) so it's coolant. the thing is it's only durning startup, at least from what i can tell. this means to me that when i shut the engine off the water pressure pushes water past the seals and it settles in the engine.

my question is: is this a big problem or is it a more of a common thing?

either way i'm beginning to disbelieve what i was told about it being a 6K old factory rebuild when i bought it last may...

Sideways7

iTrader: (7)

That sounds like coolant seal problems to me. Its definately not normal. Im not sure about the water pressure pushing the coolant into the chamber when it suts off, but it prob just slowly leaks out so theres a lot accumulated when its been sitting for a while. Is it slowly loosing coolant, but its not driping anywhere? I'm blanking on the other ways to determine if its a bad water seal.

86J

Do you still have the cold start assist system that injects coolant into the engine when its cold out?

if so then that could be the smoke that you are seeing.

the system is located in the back passenger side of the engine bay.

86J

its in yellow

not to good of picture

Templeswain

Its definately not normal. Im not sure about the water pressure pushing the coolant into the chamber when it suts off,


I would guess that it could either suck it in or blow it out depending upon where the seal failed. If it failed on the combustion side, then it wld seem to blow it out into the lines causing an overflow. If the seal failed on the exuast side it would seem that it would smoke and smell sweet.

My first FC blew a seal. It smoked and smelled sweet but didn't have coolent leaking anywhere.

My s4 gxl motor pukes coolent from the overflow and its on my garage floor right now waiting for a rebuild. I'm sure its seal failed also.

When I take that apart I expect to see the failure more towards the upper of the housing.....buts that's my guess. Could have failed anywhere.

BigTone

I would say coolent seal however he is only blowing smoke durring start up? It seems if the seal was gone then it would smoke all the time.

Wankels-Revenge

Agreed...as mentioned earlier it could be your cold-start assist (if its still installed that is...)

I say run the geyser test.

Sideways7

iTrader: (7)

My car only smoked at startup, and it had a coolant seal failure. Even at the very end of its life when it was blowing coolant all over the engine bay, it only smoked during startup.

Wankels-Revenge

I guess it depends on the conditions when it smokes during start up. Mine smokes during start up when its cold outside.

projekt

it has been cold the past two days, but i live in florida and the car is from here afaik but i'll see if i have a cold start system.

86J

yah the car probable wont have the cold start system if the car is from Florida.

i think it was ment for colder climates......like Canadian winters!!

projekt

winter here just means you have to wear pants

anyway,this morning i checked it again and i'm not sure if it's water or oil that's causing the smoke. maybe my emission sniffer is busted.

i have an OMP, not sure if it works, and i premix as a result since i haven't had teh chance to remove it. could i just have a leaky oil injector and the pile of oil accumulates? cause it smokes for about 10 seconds at least, and wouldn't water get blown out faster than that?

SureShot

Are you loosing any coolant at all?

projekt

yes i am, but only at the overflow bottle. the radiator is constant even if the bottle goes dry. i'm not competant to check the bottle or line to it for signs of leakage

SpeedFreak03

Cold...Florida?? Heh we get 15F here every morning! Right nows its 30-35F not too cold. Anyway it sounds like coolant seals, especially if you don't have a cold-start assist. Do the geyser test to be sure. Good luck!

SureShot

The engine is sucking it in during cool down.

Try the "block weld" stuff as soon as possible, before the O-ring is eroded too much.

I have had this happen, and was able to patch it with radiator stop leak.
I caught it early, before there was too much erosion of the O-ring.
The short version:
Hard to start, catches & sputters, blows white smoke, then clears up & runs OK.
To fix:
Good coolant flush, add half the stop leak, idle warm up to full temp, shut off & cool down cold, (repeat)
Do a search under "block weld".
Many have had good luck with that product & there is a good write up on the forum using it.

projekt

it's not hard to start though. fires very quickly, then blows smoke (after a second or so) then sputters, then no smoke and still sputters. my car seems to backfire a lot.

i will try the geyser test, but to be clear, you open the cap from the radiator, then start the engine and wait for the bubbles to spray you with sugar water?

BigTone

Would using block weld make the core unusable when the coolent seal does go? That is something I have wondered, I dont need it, but if I ever do, I think I would rather have a good core, than a pile of junk.