21 replies to this topic

[Clubby1275GT]

Hiya everyone, im new here but i know ur basic info on mini's.
last night i was giving the little clubby a bit of stick but nothing excessive after i turned right quite hard and pulled away the car did i slight miss for about a second then it cleared and my mates saw a bigcloud of white smoke come out of the exhaust. i turned the engine off, inspected it and all was fine, no overheating, no oil loss, no leaks and no oil pressur eprobs. later on i drove off to take her home and it was fine, no power loss or torque, running as fine as ever, was wondering if anyone new what may have caused it?
i have been told it could be the head gasket on the way out or piston probs. but im thinking if it was white smoke then it couldnt be pistons.
runs fine now but got a motorway journey on friday and dont want to drive it if its gonna die!!
did top up the oil last week if that affects anything.
by the way i was turning right all the way, going around in a big square????
Cheers
Daz

[Purple Tom]

bizarre! White smoke indicates water usually, blue smoke is oil and black smoke is fuel.

Did you go through any puddles at all during the right handed escapades? Mine used to steam a lot in the wet, it often looked like it was coming from the exhaust but twasn't.

Other than that, I'm stumped! Someone else is bound to have heard of something similar though!

[Clubby1275GT]

nah no puddles that im aware of, one person said it may just have been breathing oil. i really am stumped if its head gasket im gonna be p*ssed!!
one lad who is constantly working on his opened the rocker cap and said it smell quite fuel-ly??? like exhaust fumes?
someone else said it may have been a tappet stuck hard on and to check 'em??
cheers for the help

[Guess-Works.com]

giving the little clubby a bit of stick

When an F1 car blows it's engine what colours the smoke ???

This is oil landing on hot surfaces, check you engine breathers and also your exhaust manifold for traces of oil.. It could well be crankcase pressure blowing oil out the breathers onto the exhaust ( also check whats on the underside of the bonnet )

Mine did something similar at 7.5K rpm at the showdown a couple of years ago.. Engine lasted for another 6 months before it blew, just don't rev the nads off it

[Clubby1275GT]

underside of bonnet fine, no smoke or anything in engine bay when it first happened jsut smoke out of exhaust thats why its so weird, inspected the whole bay and nothing, will check breathers later and manifold. would overfilling the oil when topped up last week cause it? iim gonna drive it as normal and if its fine then its fine but if it blows up then i know its something major.
i know its a sh*t thing to do but i need to get to leeds from birmingham on friday.
just hope its nothing terminal like crank or pistons or valve seats.
havent got time to get them sorted and i hate trains!!!!
head gasket i can do. but id rather diagnose before i start stripping it!!!

[dklawson]

Since this was a one time occurence and all the other fluids seem OK, I have to ask a different question. Do you have a brake servo and has brake fluid been going somewhere... but not leaking on your foot?

Brake fluid will also cause white smoke. If the servo is leaking it can collect inside there until the car's attitude and vacuum are just right to suck in a big slug of fluid directly into the intake manifold.

[Clubby1275GT]

cheers doug but no servo mate, engine change from the orignal gt engine to a mg metro unti as the previous owner blew it sky high.
its just puzzling me that it has only happened once, surely if it was terminal it would be permanetly doing it, is this the case with a head gasket problem or is that what it could be?
my mates dad who used to race minis said it could be one of two things, its breathing a bit of oil out or ive blown the head gasket, is it normal to smell fuel in the rocker cover and for ait to be coming out of the top of the rocker cover (exhaust gases)??? not fast but u can feel it?

[Clubby1275GT]

ANY IDEAS?? ANYONE??? I NEED TO KNOW WHETHER TO KEEP DRIVING IT OR NOT?
GOT TO DO 120MILES ON THE MOTORWAY ON FRIDAY?? GOOD IDEA OR NOT?

[minimole]

do you have a mechanical fuel pump if you do then the diaphram may have split causing fuel to leak into the engine that could account for you oil smelling of fuel

[Clubby1275GT]

i dont know what fuel pump i have, whatever came on an mg metro?
just dont want it to be anythin real bad like piston rings or something thats gonna cost me the earth. i just dont understand why its fine now, surely it should still be doing it!!
is it not normal to smell axhaust fumes in the rocker cover then?
no loss of power or torque
no more smoke out the back - clear as day
not overheating
engine always stays suprisingly cool
did top up oil on 15th october, dont think i overfilled it
no servo
no obvious changes under bonnet, no split pipes or leaks
HELP!!!

[minimole]

if you look at the back of you engine where you carb is look down from there if you see like a flying sacuer attached to your engine block ith 2 pipes connected then you have a mech pump ang on i will go get you a pic

[minimole]

fuel pump

Attached Files

•  pump.jpg   79.98K   7 downloads

[Clubby1275GT]

yeah pretty sure i got one of them! my mate has one on his because i remember him painting it and its a metro engine.

[Clubby1275GT]

????????????????????????????

[Purple Tom]

I don't think anyone is going to be able to say for sure whether your car will make it or not!

It certainly seems like there's possibly something wrong with it, an engine won't just misfire and spout white smoke unless it has an underlying problem.

However, we're not genuises, and without stripping down the engine I don't think there's anyway of finding out for definite what is wrong. :sad:

So my advice is to make sure you're a member of a good breakdown service (AA, RAC, etc), and set off on the journey with a bottle of water, some radweld and some oil, and a basic toolkit. Drive normally, but don't thrash it, and if it makes it it makes it, if it breaks down it breaks down, and at least you'll be able to get to where you're going.

Can't say any fairer than that I don't think!

(ps, just thought it could be electrical, but again without seeing the car and testing it there's no way of finding out for sure!)