Geoff's White Smoke

[Deleted]

Daughter's auto 998 "Geoff" was recently service, however has kept breaking down. RAC recovered her twice following bouts of misfiring and some electrical issues.

Went back to same garage, where it was serviced, to fix the electrical faults and a blown exhaust. "Geoff" is now smoking quite badly and the exhaust has blown for a 2nd time.

Anyone got ideas what could be wrong and how to get it to the garage as I'm having difficulty in getting it started.

Thanks in advance.

[Miniböttcher]

White smoke is down to either valve stem seals or worn piston rings

The exhaust , I take it is blowing at the joint just below the carb, undo the clamp, clean off all the old paste, so it's clean and use new exhaust paste and do it up, also check the top engine mounts are good and the engine has no movement, that movement when accelerating will break the seal on the exhaust in no time.

Is it blue/white smoke (oil) or just white as it could be the starts of, or the head gasket gone.

Also check

Check that the earth has a good connection in the boot and the engine is earthed well
Check all the connections the the coil that there a good tight fit, and the terminals are clean. Make sure the wires are not broken
Take the distributor cap off and clean the rotor arm, and the terminals inside the cap, if worn Replace
Make sure the spark plug gaps are set to 0.8mm, and there clean.
Make sure the HT leads are in good condition and fit well,
Sometimes a fuel filter is a good idea as the carb does not like old fuel or bits from the bottom of the tank.
Make sure the advance tube is fitted to the carb and distrusted and there is no breaks.

Also the timing may need checking


All these things you can do at home. And not pay garage prices.

Fingers crossed this will help.

[Deleted]

Cheers for that, appreciated. As I'm not the most technically competent I'll work through things as much as I can.

The exhaust does seem to be blown just where the manifold meets the down section of the exhaust pipe, so I'll take it from there.

The smoke is white - I also had a look into the radiator to see if there is any discolouration of the coolant and or gunk but this seems to be OK so hopefully it is not the head.

I'll also try the other suggestions, plugs, HT leads and connections and see how it turns out.

[paul1275s]

Get a Haynes workshop manual, there is a very good fault finding guide you can follow. Also try and find a more Mini friendly garage...

[Deleted]

Manual is next on the list. As for the more friendly mini garage - the one in question is a mini specialist. Must have had the apprentice on the times it's been in.

[sonikk]

Do a compression test to see if anything is amiss there. Another possibility is it could be brake fluid.

If you have a brake servo that is failing internally it could allow oil to be sucked into the inlet manifold.

If you are not using coolant at all then it does point to something else

[glenn25]

Hi all sonikk is right white smoke is usually down to afaulty servo sucking in fluid and burning it through the vacuum pipe, has the brake fluid dropped?

[monkeyjim]

We are a Mini friendly garage , I tinker lol ..........but seriously we have 3 guys at my place diverse in things Mini , 1 was a Caffyns apprentice and mechanic from 1971 my boss has also 40 plus years experiance and I have been playing around with them since 1987.
Trouble is we are in Saltdean , which is a bit far from Hastings .

Going along with what the others have been suggesting :

Root cause of exhaust blowing at downpipe joint will either be the top or bottom engine steady bars and mounts . No point fixing the blow and not the cause .

Or the fact Automatics are not very good at going in gear smoothly and putting extra stress on the engine mounts and top steady bar will not be helping matters .
We have had dealings with a customers 1275 auto , it broke the downpipe off . It goes into gear with a bang ( as some do ) the engine rocks and all this puts strain on the mounts and the poor old exhaust . We have put uprated top steady bar bushes in and replaced both engine mounts , 1 was broken . We also bought a flexi section of exhaust like the fuel injected Minis and modern cars have and welded it into the exhaust . So far It is all working well for about a year . Really the cause of all this is the crappy auto gearbox . It needs a rebuild and the customer knows it.

I called the Hailsham gearbox people for a quote on sorting out another customers 998 auto Mini that will not move in reverse . Cost of a rebuild and the specialist removing and refitting the engine transmission assembly was about £1400 with the vat .

Test a servo by pumping the brake pedal , hold foot on the pedal and start the car up . If the pedal does not sink there is a issue . That is the way of testing them on MOTS . A hissing of air from it is also a problem and test failure and sometimes the one way valves in the servo pipe can fail but not ever done one on mini.

White smoke could be a head gasket issue , get them to do a chemical head test to confirm .
Dave