hi all, heres a non subaru one for you all, one of my work vans (fiat ducato 2.8d 2002reg) has suddenly developed the following simptoms,

it takes around a minute to start in the morning but while its turning over its not firing and its blowing out loads of white smoke, it will eventually start to fire and will then run fine all day its just the first start of the day,.

key points

1 minute to start
white smoke before it fires
once started its fine
coolant levels seem to be the same

and over to you lot, any ideas will be greatly appreaciated.

 

condensation ?

 

but why the hard start up (60secs approx to first fire)

 

engine about to go boom?

 

glow plugs have failed

same thing happens on diesel generators with no preheat, a nightmare to start, once a bit of heat in engine, starts ok then

 

poor battery ?, the cold will defiantly show it up

 

As above - Glow/heater plugs burnt out or clogged air filter.

Mick

 

i was in the opinion that glow plugs gradually got worse, this has suddenly started ???? although when it is started the glo plug light flashes for a while then goes out but its done this for months but the problem has only reared up the last 2 mornings,.

 

and will this puther smoke out until it starts,

 

The last two mornings being a lot colder and wetter...

the advice above is sound - this is the time of year that problems like this tend to show

 

ahhh well glo plugs it shall recieve, cheers all

 

we got 1 for work but a 51 plate. pile of shi*e tbh. ours takes ages to start. dont think plugs ever been changed an down to that imo. mpg crap too

 

im a builder so any vans i buy get moosed up pretty bad in no time at all hence the cheap big van, i bought a spanker renault traffic 2 year ago it now looks 12 years old i wont be doing that again,.

 

weve been bugging are boss for ages for a new van as this does prob less than 25mpg an wont take the skin off a rice pudding! wont pull 60 an struggles to 50. is that the same as sometimes i think ours is restricted although we have a big glass rack on 1 side

 

mines no rally car matey although this one has around 400kg of tools in it and 3 sets of ladders on the roof rack it will still crack 80 in no time, to be honest it is a greedy beast the mpg aint good so i try to confine this one to local work, motorway runs drink the fuel potering round the streets seems to be pretty good,.

 

think somethin is up with ours then. u defo have a 2.8d not td?

 

yep 2.8d no turbo on this old bus,.

 

think we have worse problem than u lol

 

doh didnt realise it was a diesel engine we were talking about

 

glow plugs can suddenly fail, if one has suddenly given up then that could explain the smoke as some diesel will be passing unburnt due to duff plug. althugh its usually blue/black tinted not pure white.

 

Sounds very much like a problem with the glow plugs themselves or glow plug circuit.
A quick continuity test is a good starting point for checking glow plugs before removal.

White smoke will just be the unburnt diesel.

 

give me a spanner and i will build you a ufo but i aint any good a testing things, how do you do the continuity test,

 

Disconnect the glow plugs (the tiny little nuts on top) and remove the copper "bus bar" (could be a just a wire) then put a test meter in Ohms mode and check between tip of glow plug and the cylinder head. (basically looking for the path to earth)

reading should be below 5 or 6 Ohms