200Tdi blue/white smok and engine hunting/high rev power drop off.

[Maverik]

Hey People, bit new to this as my first Landy, so please bare with me. I'm pretty keen to know how it works so any help would be appreciated.

Yesterday my newly aquired 90 decided to throw a strop, engine wont keep constant rev's and blows out blue/white smoke whenever the accel is pushed. Also power drop off and "engine hunting" gets worse with rev's.

Crank case breather is also puffing slight oily mist on start up.

Reading an old post from 2007, people have found problems rangeing from head gasket blown through to another cylinder, missing water/oil galleries. To loose/poor injectors to air leak into fuel system.

Anyone any idea's? also can you do a cylinder commpression test at home?

Thanks

[cipx2]

You should first make sure which color the smoke is (mostly), blue or white. If white, is it steam (it disperses fast in the atmosphere) or unproperly burnt diesel (it has an awful smell, it hurts your noise and throat and it's persistant)?

Then try running it with the intake disconnected from the intercooler and see how it goes (and also see how much oil comes out from the intercooler if any).

Coolant level and oil in the coolant? Oil level and milky aspect of the oil? Foamy or condensed water on the inside of the oil filler cap or rocker cover?

Yes, you can do a compression test anywhere as long as you have the tools and compression test kit and also the battery + starter are fine.

[western]

might be a failing/failed fuel lift pump too, mine had died recently, engine sounded like it was pulsing while driving, a new lift pump cured it, no sign of any pulsing over the weekends 500 mile road trip to friends & back.

[Les Henson]

That's not typical symptoms of a failed lift pump. I would look at intermittent obstruction to the inlet side of the engine - delaminated hose perhaps.

Les.

[Maverik]

Thanks for your feedback guys hell of a lot more usefull than the last forum I went on.

I've done all the tests under the sun to work out if its a head gasket..., not loosing water or oil, no exhaust/gurgling or foaming when opening the oil filler cap and dip stick cover etc.

What have done is drained the fuel filter yesterday and got some not very pleasant looking water out of it, about half a mug full.

When I tried to re prime the filter using the manual leaver on the lift pump, if felt distinctly "hollow" and I couldn't get the tell tail pubbles at the fuel filter bleed nut.

I've checked all hoses work for inlet pipe "sucking" there is a bit of soft pipe on the intercooler, but that seems fine - I will check it to make sure it hasn't internally collapsed.

But as I'm a tad skeptical now of the lift pump after Western's comment, I think that might be my next fix.

Question: how much resistance do you usually feel on the manual lever on the lift pump?

[Retroanaconda]

Bear in mind that the lobe may not be sitting on the cam properly. Flick the engine on the starter a bit and then try it again, the manual pump doesn't always line up correctly and you have to do this to rectify it.