Bad smoke coming from KATE

[ju55ean]

Hi all, 

i was wondering if anyone has had any problems with smoke ? I took Kate out for a drive yesterday, filled her almost up and went for a drive. Was running very odd and popping a lot. Got back and noticed a bit of smoke. Switched her off and had a look around, couldn’t see nothing wrong... switches her back on and bang! White smoke everywhere. First thought was head gasket but the temperature was okay while driving and no signs off gunk around oil cap. I use EVANSWATERLESS coolant so not sure if the signs would be the same with this coolant ? I can’t post a video for some reason but il put on up on the RTr Facebook rocket page. Any advice would be great. Thanks Sean 

[ssmith764]

White smoke is usual for head gasket failure. I am not sure of the effect on running with waterless coolant if it were leak and also the effect of it mixing with oil. That may be the reason you do not see the same gunk around the oil cap that you would if using using water.

[Stiggy]

Evans admit that their product is more likely to find a leak than water due to it's "very low surface tension"
Maybe old water/anti freeze full of sludge and dissolved solids would not find a place to get through to the combustion zone.
The Evans stuff is expensive but water does the job well enough.
Evans waterless coolant is basically glycol so I am not sure how they manage to get such a high ticket price, it's just detoxified so presumably it's less likely to harm if you drink it. Glycol was found in Austrian wine some years ago, used as a sweetener.

Basically as a rough guide to smoking (no not a roll up) the colours are as follows.

Blue exhaust smoke may indicate oil being burnt, rings gone perhaps.
Black smoke indicates the mixture is over rich, fuelling issue perhaps.
White smoke after warm up suggests coolant leaking into combustion camber, possibly head gasket failure.

You could carry out a simple compression test to see if one pot is below others which may suggest a head gasket gone at that point thus letting coolant in.

You could "fit" 4life, as that changes colour from red to yellow if a head gasket is blown.

If have you got a sweet smell at the exhaust, that is what we expect from glycol mixed with exhaust gas.

[ju55ean]

Thanks for your help, turns out I some how cracked the head .. 😐great

[carlyd]

Well on the upside at least you know the issue so you can get it fixed!

[ju55ean]

Yea there’s always a positive! The engine is almost out, I’ve got a st170 engine which I’m getting ready to go in on low compression with a turbo 😅 Kate will be back ! Lol