Date:         Sat, 25 Aug 2007 20:34:49 -0500
Reply-To:     John Rodgers <inua@CHARTER.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         John Rodgers <inua@CHARTER.NET>
Subject:      Re: White smoke?
Comments: To: Wesley Pegden <wes@CS.UCHICAGO.EDU>
In-Reply-To:  <46D06867.5030807@cs.uchicago.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

Wes,

The "White Smoke" syndrome of the Vanagons  is indicative of an internal
failure resulting coolant leaking into the cylinder - usually a cracked
head, but could be some other seal issue. Another possibility is that
you actually have a "Blue Smoke" syndrome. Unless you are really
familiar, they may look so similar as to look the same.  You need to
have a compression test done immediately before further driving, or you
could cause  a catastrophic engine failure, resulting in so much damage
that you cannot fix the problem at reasonable cost, but will have to
replace the engine completely. The white smoke syndrome in my case was
really a bluish smoke - but seen at night it was difficult to tell. A
hold burned through  the piston, scored the cylinder, destroyed the
piston, over heated the head to the point the head had a melt point on
it and put metal all through the engine.

You have some thing major happening, and the compression test will help
isolate it an give you info on the direction to take for repair.

Regards,

John Rodgers
88 GL Driver

Wesley Pegden wrote:
> My '84 1.9l started blowing white smoke a few weeks ago.  I made it home
> mostly coasting (under a mile) and checked it out, the vacuum hoses were
> all shot (cracked, falling off, etc), I figured that was the problem.
> (It also was idling really erratically).  Haven't driven it since then
> until today: I fixed the hoses finally, started it up, idles fine, drive
> it around the block, starts blowing smoke again halfway around.  When I
> get back to where I was parked before (2 minutes later) it's idling badly.
>
> Ideas?  Did I mess something up?
>
> Thanks very much!
> Wes
>
>
>