Macabre

This morning.. I drove to work, took the "scenic" route and pushed the car pretty hard. About two hour after arriving I realized I needed to go back home for something.. drove about 3 blocks and immediately after coming to a stop at a stoplight the idle started jumping up and down and eventually dropped low enough that the car died. Around the same time a fairly large cloud of white smoke rose out from under the hood. I tried to start her back up and it would crank but not fire. Sat there for about a minute and then it started up fine and took me home (~20 miles) without incident. I do have a leaking oil pan gasket (possibly other leaks) which I'm going to replace at the next oil change. I have to add about 1/2 quart for every 2 tanks of gas. I checked the oil level and it was low but above the lower notch on the dipstick. Also, I noticed that the turbo water pump ground wire had frayed off of the pump which must have happened this morning since I heard the pump running last night.

Anyone have any clues what might have caused the car to die and not start? Is the turbo water pump related in any way or just coincidence?

Thanks in advance.. seems like whenever I have a good period of trouble-free running she has to remind me "I am not a toyota"

Thaddeus

Dunno, but white smoke usually means coolant. I'd focus my inquiry on systems that are implicated in the cooling system.

Thaddeus

adrial

I remember reading a few messages either here or on the e-mail lists not too long ago about a similar problem (cloud of white smoke out of the engine bay). The consensus was that it was either the headgasket or the oil cooler seals. I would say check those out and also check if there's any oil in the coolant.

good luck! Lets hope I'm wrong

Macabre

Hmm.. would it have been so sudden and not have done anything wrong afterwards if that were the problem? I'll take a look..

I did notice a couple drops of coolant from the timing belt cover a couple weeks ago (I posted about it here but didn't get any solid responses..) I never did trace down where the few drops were coming from.. figured it was a very slow leak from the water pump that I would get around to when I did the front engine service.

There is definitely no detectable amount of oil in the coolant resevoir and no coolant comes up on the oil dipstick. Wish I could have had the hood open when the smoke came out!

If the head gasket had blown, would it have run normally the rest of the way home? I tried getting on the boost a little and power was not reduced (I run 16psi but did not have the gauge in the car at the time) and there was no smoke or anything at that time. I would think that if the coolant and oil (and fuel/air, right?) were mixing it would not be a happy runner and would leave a trail of smoke behind it?

Any other ideas? Appreciate any response.. I'm open to far-fetched guesses as well since I am a new owner and don't know all the common diagnostic tricks yet.

adrial

Hmmm...All valid points. I don't know what to tell you.

I agree with Thaddeus in that it should be coolant (white smoke = coolant).

Try posting this to the 951 or 924/944 email lists. They're usually much more busy than the web boards.

Macabre

Can't white smoke also be oil?

Is there a website somewhere with subscription info for the 951 mailing list?

Thanks

adrial

Direct link to subscription page


Click here to get to the main page for the e-mail lists: The E-Mail lists

White smoke is typically coolant...

Macabre

Okay, thanks..

What perplexes me the most is the engine dieing and not starting.. I just don't get that. I think I'll take the distributor cap off and make sure nothing under there is leaking.

I'll post my questions to the 951 mailing list..

Macabre

Just to update, I think I figured out what happened. I've got a very slow coolant leak from (I assume) the water pump. Some coolant probably pooled in the bottom of the timing belt cover and then splashed onto something hot when the motor warmed up. The vapor from the water/antifreeze probably got up into the distributor and the rest is history.. guess I'll be doing the front engine service a little sooner than I had planned.