Ford ka, 52 plate, 40k miles, fsh (oil changes every 10k but now due). Old 'Enduro' pushrod engine with injection.
Car is producing a fair bit of grey (not blue) smoke on startup when cold, worse after standing overnight, worse again on cold days. Just a bit too bad to 'let it develop' although once warm, its fine. Drives well, uses a litre of oil in 6k, doesn't use any water, doesn't pressurise coolant excessively. Valve stem oil seals look ok with rockerbox off - soft, not hardened as far as I can tell. Any thoughts?
Ta
Neil
Subject line changed to include model and year. - PU
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I know as soon as a I saw the title it would be a Ford push rod engine :D
Does it have the usual black soot ring round the rear tail pipe? My old Fiesta did it and I put to wear and tear but the car won;t start now so not a good idea to ignore it.
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"Does it have the usual black soot ring round the rear tail pipe?"
Not particularly, but catalysed cars don't really do that, do they? What was the cause on yours?
Neil
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>>Just a bit too bad to 'let it develop' although once warm, its fine. Drives well, uses a litre of oil in 6k, doesn't use any water, doesn't pressurise coolant excessively.
Sounds like a perfect case for "let it develop" to me.
Number_Cruncher
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I wondered if Aprilia or 659, particularly, might have an angle on this one?
Either about? Any thoughts - others also welcome of course??!
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check to see if the injection timing on cold starting is controlled by a solenoid on the pump, if so check the wiring and connection to the pump. jag.
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There is no such thing as a DIESEL Ka!!!
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Modern stem seals on this date of engine should not go hard but if they did,the smoke would be blue on start-up.Oil consumption is a little high but much less than some other makes-once again-that would be blue smoke.Nothing else appears wrong-just drive it.
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"Nothing else appears wrong-just drive it. "
Aye, if it were mine I'd do that. But its a mate's wife's and 'its embarassing'... therefore might end up costing him a change of car, so if there was a fix it'd be worth it!
The smoke definitely isn't blue and I agree re stem seals - and I guess bore/ring wear as well - producing a distinct blue haze! For what its worth, the thing just flew through an MOT emissions test, but obviously when warm.
N
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Does the grey smoke smell of anything? unburnt fuel perhaps?
Number_Cruncher
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>>But its a mate's wife's>>
And does she pootle around in it? Might just need a good thrashing (the Ka not the wife !!!!!), a Italian tune-up should clear it out, 20 miles of extending it through the gears (Kas are fun on the back roads) and 30 miles of 80 m/way. A fill up with Shell Optimax or similar before hand would help.
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Yep - quite possibly... will offer that thought!
Cheers guys.
Neil
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It will be the valve stem seals, you can do these with the head on so fairly straight forward,just make sure you order the proper rubbers for this engine that have the metal top on that affixes to the head rather than lets it ride on the valve.
Give wife a good thrashing anyway ;-)
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Hmm.... that's what we originally thought BB, and I'm normally pretty confident on your diagnoses...but when the rocker cover was off the seals looked/felt okay and the smoke is grey, not at all blue... how confident? (and tell me more about doing them in situ... is this using comp. air or rope through the plughole, or is there a more up to date fiendish trick? Do tell!
Ta
Neil
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if it was blue then i would suspect bore wear but if its grey its usually the seals,a compression test and wet test would confirm,however you said first thing in the morning and this is when oil has had time to seep down the valves overnight and then be burnt off in a rich mixture of fuel on the start cycle
the tool is available and is basically a small spring compresser,put the appropiate cylinder to tdc with the valves shut ,hit the collet retaining washer to unseat the collets then wind the tool down,a small magnet aerial is ideal to retrieve the collets,watch you dont drop the collets in the plug holes
reversal as they say.......
ok?
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Bellboy, cheers mate. Will have another look at this based on what you said.
Ta
Neil
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