White Exhaust Smoke

Sydney · Padawan Joined: 22 Sep 2012 Posts: 55

Has anyone experienced white exhaust smoke from their EJ20?
It continued for 20 minutes or so on idle before I turned it off again. I wondered if the head gasket might have gone and didn't want to drive it in case of doing further damage.
The engine had overheated a couple of times a few days ago due to a failed thermostat. Could this have caused the problem?
The compression is ok. Any ideas?

Obonobo · Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2012 3:31 pm Post subject:

I am not an expert, but white smoke usually indicates cooling water's being burnt. (Blue is oil, black is too much fuel). Yellowish goo in the oilfiller cap may also be an indication.

Check your gaskets (rips due to too much pressure) and your cilinders (small cracks between coolant channels and cilinder due to overheating) or cilinder heads (warped due to overheating, so they don't line up very well with your cilinders).

All of these leak coolant to the chambers, be burnt and cause white smoke.
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Greetings from Sietze
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Driving a '75 Bay with a EJ22 '93 and 091 6-rib box.

And it's a long time since it looked anything like this!