Overheating and Smoky engine.

Driving to work this morning my GTA turbo overheated.

I've spent the past few months trying to fix this! It's recently had a radiator re-core and a new water pump and hoses fitted. The car has only been back on the road for a week. The system was properly bled and tested and was serviced too. Everything seemed to be running better then ever, until this morning, when the temp gauge rose and rose and kept rising until the warning lights came on and I was forced to pull over with a boiling and bubbling engine!

The AA patrol man I subsequently called out topped up the coolant, bled it again and carried out a coolant system pressure test and a combustion gas detection test, but found 'no abnormal symptoms'!

All he could suggest was perhaps I have a small leak somewhere, which has caused a gradual coolant loss over the past week (perhaps foolishly, I hadn't checked the level since last w/end, when it looked fine) which caused the overheating this morning.

However, besides not being able to nail down the problems with the cooling once and for all, this episode this morning has led to more serious problems. As a consequence of the overheating, it seems!

Since the overheating this morning, I drove to work and commuted home too, in heavy traffic. The temp stayed fine, the car didn't overheat again and it drove absolutley smoothly and normally, except...! Everytime I stopped I was surrounded by clouds of blue smoke!

Investigating further when I got home, the engine sounds and runs absolutely fine. No nasty, unusual noises, no missing or hesitation or anything. Except for loads of blue smoke billowing from the exhausts! Has anyone any ideas what might be the cause of this smoking?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, on this and the cooling problems.

Cheers!

Mmm....dont want to be the bearer of bad news, but billowing oil smoke from the exhaust (I assume its coming out of the tail pipes and not from the engine in general here) means only 2 things.....your piston rings are f**ked or your valve stem oil seals are f**ked....either way its gonna hurt.
Its heads off either way, and worse if its piston rings. Having said that, I once drove an Alfa 75 for 10 months with seriously worn piston rings. Avoided the smoke by running the car with about 2 litres of oil in it instead of the usual 5!!!!! But I wouldnt recommend that unless youre planning to replace the engine or scrap the car

Thanks peterg. I wasnt expecting very good news!

If its valve seals or piston rings, do both these mean engine out jobs? Any idea on cost?

Get it checked in a garage - gas analysis of the exhaust etc before you panic too much.

The number of coincidences you get on a GTA are beyond belief. Could be a number of things i.e. perforated fuel pressure regulator overfuelling the injectors..... and naff all to do with overheating.

I'll admit it doesn't sound promising what you said, but if any car is going to trick you (deliberately - they like to do that) with another foible you never knew existed its an Alpine.

Best of luck anyway! Keep us all posted.

Thanks, will do.

I was also wondering if the turbo oil seals could also be a possibility?

But as you suggest I'm going to arrange to have it checked at a garage.

Could be the turbo, does it do it only when its warm, or straight away? Get a garage to do a leak down test and then youll know what the problem is. With the overheating you may have cracked a ring.

Yes, it seems to be smoking on start up from cold. Although it's hard to tell if it's not condensation. I drove it down the road to the local garage and it wasn't smoking at all when i pulled up outside! But by the time I drove back home and it was fully up to temperature it was smoking blue smoke quite heavily again.

So I've booked it into the local garage for them to do a few tests on it next Saturday and see what they can find.

HI

MY ALPINE USED TO SUFFER OVERHEATING PROBLEMS DONE THE RAD DONE A HEADGASKET STILL OVERHEATED SO I DECIDED TO GET IT FIXED PROPERLY
I AM STILL IRONING OUT THE FINAL POINTS OF A MAJOR REBUILD WHEN THE CAR WAS IN BITS I FOUND OUT BOTH HEADS GASKETS GONE BOTH HEADS NEEDED WELDING THEN SKIMMING AND ONE OF YHE WETLINER HOUSINGS WERE CRACKED SO I NEEDED THE BOTTOM END OFF A DIFFERENT ENGINE

ALPINEROB

Took it on a test run today with someone following in another car to look out for smoke.

It doesn't smoke at all from cold. Once fully up to temp. it smoked once from both exhausts, whilst stopped at a set of lights, but once I pulled away it stopped. That was the only time it smoked. I even gave it a couple of full throttle bursts of acceleration to see if it blew clouds of smoke. Nothing!

I parked back up on the driveway and it still wasn't smoking. However, something happened, perhaps related to the coolant loss problems. While it was sat idling, still not smoking, I noticed the coolant expansion bottle cap was wet and the hoses to and from the water pump were rock hard. The coolant system seems to be pressurising too much forcing coolant past the cap. When I slowly turned the expansion bottle cap slightly to release a bit of pressure, the hoses softened (I know they shouldn't be completely soft - firm but not rock hard) and the engine started smoking again, as if the two were related.

Think this is a sign of combustion gas leaking into the coolant system and therefore the head gaskets are on the way out?

Does the absence of smoke on full throttle mean it's not the turbo?

[simontaylor]

Do you have a compression tester, screws in instead of the plug.
Try a compression test of each cylinder while you think that the cooling system is "over pressurised" , then release the cooling system pressure and test all the cylinders again. I would guess that if some cylinders are much lower the second time around, that they are leaking into the cooling system, maybe ????

it is starting to sound like a head gasket problem.... eeeek

[simontaylor]

Is'nt a head gasket replacement an "engine IN" job, could be worse.

If the turbo seals have gone, it usually only smokes when you let off rather than on boost, as the thrust bearing isnt under pressure and oil leaks past the seals.

If it is the head gaskets, it still really needs to be engine out job as its too hard to re-time up the engine with it in situ.

If there is any head damage, I have spare good heads, as they should really never be reskimmed on the turbo models.

David ,I had my turbo heads skimmed after a blown gasket ,you,ve got me worried now.Why shouldn't this be done.It was about 3k ago and all seems OK up to now.

Had a garage carry out compression tests etc. on my engine last week. They all came out ok except the coolant system was definately pressurising and there appeared to be a definate leak of water into the 'v' behind the water pump.

So yesterday I took the inlet manifold off to check the short, large diameter hose which comes off the back of the water pump and goes to a 'y' shaped casting that bolts to the inside of the v, which turned out to be split, basically knackered and probably the cause of the coolant leak into the v. I'm guessing this must have been sucking air back into the system when the engine cooled, causing the system to pressurise with air the next time I ran the car.

So, I've replaced this hose, refilled with coolant, bled and ran the engine untill the fans cut in and the system is no longer pressurising and all now seems fine on the coolant side.

However, clouds of smoke are still bollowing out of the exhausts, and seeing it better in daylight, it definately smokes from cold and it looks white. So i think the smoke now looks like a head gasket problem, causing by the overheating.

Anyone had their head gaskets done and anyone know how much it's likely to hurt my wallet?