What Diesel Exhaust tells you...

[jimlay]

Greetings;

I looked all through the threads and none of them jumped out at me with the answer to this simple question, so I'll ask here.

When run at moderate throttle my engine doesn't smoke very much, but when run at full throttle it puts out significant white smoke. What are the various things that exhaust can tell you about the health of your engine and what maintenance should be done based on exhaust indications?

Thanks

Jimlay

 

[JRacer]

Check this out: http://www.answers.com/topic/diesel-smoke

 

[Seattle Scott]

I got white smoke the same time I noticed a reduced flow of the raw water discharge. I replaced the mixing elbow ( after I rulled out other caused for reduced flow) and water discharge increased significantly and no more smoke.

 

[Maine Sail]

I very often tells you two things;

1- You could have a water leak into a cylinder, eg: head gasket failure

2- You may have reduced cooling water flow through your raw water circuit. This is the most common...

 

[mattkling]

I ran into this when cruising to the San Juans this summer. I had never seen smoke/steam in my exhaust before, but was having a steady stream once the engine was up to speed/temp. After examining closely, decided it was steam not smoke. Also, the exhaust seemed a bit louder. The engine never overheated, but it turned out to be that the new impeller had lost 2 blades and water flow was reduced. Replaced the impeller and the steam was gone and the exhaust note back to normal.

 

[jimlay]

Greetings All;

I actually pulled the ipeller and it was shredded....I am amazed that I never saw a rise in temp at all, but two bla=des were gone and others cracked and ready to go. Thanks for the words all who contributed!

Jimlay