PLEASE tell me it isn't precat related... it's white?!?!

[Anonymous]

Correct me if i'm wrong, which I really hope i'm not, but if you're cars burning oil, then surely it wouldn't turn the end of the actual exhaust white, would it??!?!

Someone please reassure me here! I've just spent about £200 on the car, new key, new naughty black and silver number plates, a patch on the roof where it had worn through from the inside, and general other little TLC items as well as a damn good clean inside and out and then, to top it all off, i'm out for a drive not more than 20 minutes ago, enjoying the fruits of my labour, and getting plenty of admiring glances, when I pull off a roundabout straight onto a dual carriageway, and decide to put my foot down, halfway through 2nd (so prob about 4500-5000revs?) and I see a load of white smoke in the rearview!   s:shock: :shock: s:shock:  

I Immediately clutch in, up to 3rd and slowly, very slowly, drive to a mates house nearby. It looks fine when stood still, ticking over, apart from the exhaust 'pipe' itself being white!   s:? :? s:?    so he stands there and watches me drive down the road 50metres, to make sure I wasn't imagining it and lo and behold, a small-medium amount of white smoke (or whatever it is) comin out the exhaust...

now, neither of us are mechanics by any means of the word, but we always thought that when a car was burning oil, it smelt of oil and the exhaust itself didn't turn white???

Please help?

I'm (kind of) hoping it's the main cat gone, would this cause this? if it's precat related, then surely it'd be oil, which wouldn't turn the exhaust white, and I can't see it being actual precat material itself as surely it'd get caught up in the main cat??

HELP!?!?!?!

[Anonymous]

Pre-cat material can (and does) pass the main cat, so it's a possibility. Best way is to hold a black hanky close to the exhaust while someone revs the engine: The particles should stick to the hanky and let you have a closer look.

Any other troubles? Lack of oil? Lack of power?



I'd say it was down to something else probably if this is your first 'symptom', so I wouldn't start panicking just yet bud. Do check the pre-cats, though.

[MRMike]

Does the exhaust tip look like this?  m http://www.mr2roc.org/phpBB2/viewtopic. ... ght=precat m

[Anonymous]

i'm going to go out and take a closer look at the exhaust in a sec. If you've read the thread titled 'Acceleration' then you'll see i was noticing a bit of a flat spot at about 4500 a couple of weeks ago, so cleaned the MAF and reset the ECU, but that didn't seem to make much difference.

The thing thats kinda worrying me now, although I may just be being paranoid, is that I've also said that i've noticed a slight drop in overall power (more towards the top rev range) this last couple of months, but i'd just put that down to the hotter weather, and perhaps I was just getting a bit more used to the car or something, of course, now this has happened tonight I'm thinking along totally different lines!!!

I'm kinda up S*** creek, it's my only car, I don't live on a major public transport route, and there's nothing even approaching a direct public transport route to work, i've at least gotta drive to work tomorrow to arrange some time off, other than that, I guess it's best to get it into MrT for that precat gutting I posted about the other day? and then hope for the best?

[Anonymous]

Does the exhaust tip look like this?  m http://www.mr2roc.org/phpBB2/viewtopic. ... ght=precat m

not quite, mine looks like it's got a much much finer white powder all round the inside than that, that looks like quite visible little lumps or grains. Much finer powdery appearance in my case...

[Anonymous]

If i recall correctly, blue smoke indicates oil burning and black smoke is down to fuel mixture so neither of those.

I think white smoke indicates coolant getting burnt, so worst case scenario would be head gasket, not precat. I'd be surprised though, I don't think anybodys had that occur yet?

Richie.

[MRMike]

Mine's had that...and I thought mine was a gasket as well..

 m http://www.mr2roc.org/phpBB2/viewtopic. ... ike+precat m

I've been trying to find a picture that I took of mine when it had precat damage.  And the inside of the exhaust tip had a fine powder, not disimilar to chalk.

Have you checked your precats yet?

[Anonymous]

no, not checked. was meant to be getting gutted in a week or two as per my other thread re: dealership gutting prices...

I guess it's pretty conclusive that it's gonna be the precats that're coming out the rear. Will just have to hope for the best, as spending £2k on a new engine or whatever would seriously screw my plans up at the moment.

just as an aside, i've just been searching and read that there should be a constant vacuum on the fuel tank, mine has only ever made a slight hissing sound when i've opened it once or twice, quite literally, what could be the reason for this? and is it likely to cause any issues?

[Anonymous]

no, not checked. was meant to be getting gutted in a week or two as per my other thread re: dealership gutting prices...

I guess it's pretty conclusive that it's gonna be the precats that're coming out the rear. Will just have to hope for the best, as spending £2k on a new engine or whatever would seriously screw my plans up at the moment.

just as an aside, i've just been searching and read that there should be a constant vacuum on the fuel tank, mine has only ever made a slight hissing sound when i've opened it once or twice, quite literally, what could be the reason for this? and is it likely to cause any issues?

if it does turn out to be your precats, you may get toyota fixing it out of goodwill - they did this for me as my car was 5 yrs and a week old when the claim went in. This was done regardless of my extended warranty, but on the basis that I had a full service history. No harm in finding out I guess?

Hope you get your issues solved,

Riche.

[Anonymous]

hmm, problem with that is that yes i've got a full service history, but no, it's not Toyota...

I'll definately be getting in touch with ToyoGB to find out what they have to say about it, but i'm not holding my breath!   s:roll: :roll: s:roll:  

But, in the meantime, the cars going in the garage tomorrow to have any remaining trace of precat removed. I've ordered another main cat off Adam, hopefully it'll arrive in time to have that fitted at the same time.   s:) s:)  

But here's the question, if it doesn't arrive in time, would I be ok to get the car put back together with the existing (possibly partially blocked) main cat, and drive for a couple of days? or could this cause damage to the engine? I realise if it's partially blocked (which is more than likely) then it'll affect performance due to the excessive back pressure, and Adam advises me that it may cause an issue with overheating, but apart from that, If i'm taking it steady, and avoiding crawling traffic etc, do you think it'd be ok for a couple of days?? surely precat material thats blocking it can't make it's way all the way back up the exhaust from there?!?

[Anonymous]

I'd say that if you think you've caught it before any damage has occured then it would be much better to pay £100-200 in tax fares than risk damage - for the sake of a few days!

[spit]

Yep, I'd go along with that - if the precat has gone, and its gone south, best not to take any avoidable risks.

Why not be creative and hire a van for a week - then you can do all those big shopping trips and runs to the tip  s:wink: :wink: s:wink:

I'm sure Adam'll come through for you if he possibly can. But there's a J-Spec Cat idling in my garage if you really need a temp fix (for a week or two  s:wink: :wink: s:wink:  )

[Anonymous]

thank you, I very much appreciate the offer!   s:D s:D    but I've paid Adam already, and he said he was shipping it out on a 24hr DHL shipment, so there's no reason to believe it won't arrive either tomorrow or Thursday (he wasn't sure if he'd missed the cut off for todays collection)... thanks for the offer though!

If it doesn't arrive tomorrow then yes, I think i'll make alternative arrangements for thurs & fri...

I've asked the garage to call me when they've got the manifold off, so I can see the state of the precats, before they do anything else, so I guess i'll have confirmation that it really is them that caused the white powder sometime tomorrow, hopefully around lunchtime so I don't have to get up too early! (booked the day off to recover from the stress of it all!!!   s:lol: :lol: s:lol:  )

[Leeber]

Has the oil consumption increased at all? Have you had a look at the state of the oil on the dip-stick? IIRC when the oil turns milky that indicates water in the oil, i.e. a dodgy head gasket maybe. Once, when I was a teenager (a long time ago), I put too much oil in my Mk2 Escort and it just chucked it out of the exhaust pipe in the form of thick white smoke much like you described, didn't do any lasting damage though, except to my street cred.

[spit]

Ahhhh the days before Cats. Life was so much easier then  s:wink: :wink: s:wink:  

Symptoms in James' case all seem to be pointing towards precat breakdown and Main Cat blockage Leeber, but yes its always worth keeping a routine eye on oil (and coolant) levels. They can tell you so much.

Head gasket failures in our membership have been very very rare (IIRC biggun had a scare recently - not sure what came of that). The 1-zz holds itself together well - even when boosted   s:twisted: :twisted: s:twisted:

[Anonymous]

I've read through this again and I'm not wholly convinced that its precats. It's still very possible, but i'm more inclined to think that it's something else.

IMO if it were precats, I would expect to see other symptoms such as a loss of power due to blocked cat or some oil consumption or blue smoke.

The only real symptom I can see from reading through this is that james gets white smoke when he puts his foot down. I still think this is related to coolant getting burnt somehow (eg cylinder head gasket failure)

James, to help diagnosis, are you able to find out the following:

1) The current condition of the precats (preferably top and bottom if possible),

2)Is there any sludge in you're coolant tank?

3) If you remove the oil cap, is there any gunky crap on the inside of it?

4) is there any symptoms at all that I've missed when looking through the above?

Thanks,

Richie.

[spit]

4) is there any symptoms at all that I've missed when looking through the above?

Loss of power half way through this thread

[Anonymous]

4) is there any symptoms at all that I've missed when looking through the above?

Loss of power half way through this thread

Ahh that explains it then - I got the idea I was missing something when reading through everybody elses responses.

Thanks Spit.

[spit]

NP. My first thought was water/coolant too.

The TTET guys have had a white smoke condensation issue before now, but without the loss of power  s:wink: :wink: s:wink:  

Lets see what the precat inspection shows up. Back to you james......

[ninjinski]

NP. My first thought was water/coolant too.

The TTET guys have had a white smoke condensation issue before now, but without the loss of power  s:wink: :wink: s:wink:  

Lets see what the precat inspection shows up. Back to you james......

Pure white condensation, no flakes or white spots though!

[Anonymous]

indeed, it doesn't seem to be smoke at all, it seemed to be almost like a powder, as the inside of the exhaust seemed to be coated in what looked like chalky white powder.

The car is currently in the garage, was meant to have had the manifold off today and then call me so I can see the state of the precats but the muppet who was working on it forgot to wear any eye protection and got some crap in one of em whilst under it. He ended up having to go to casualty as they couldn't clean it out properly, which pretty much ended the work on it for today, as they're really busy. pretty much dented my confidence a bit as well, but there we go...!

Not too worried about the delay, the CAT from Adam didn't arrive today, so they couldn't have put it all back together today anyway. Will have to wait and see what happens tomorrow...

[SteveJ]

TBH this just sounds as though the engine is running lean - as anyone who has been around cars for long enough to have owned one with a carb (yes - engines havent always been injected!) will know that when adjusting the fuel mixture, you aimed to get a slight chalky appearance to the exhaust after a long run. This indictated you were getting the best fuel economy as their was no unburnt fuel in the exhaust. The downside to this was you didnt have a hope of passing an MOT as the emissions would be way out of spec, along with a higher risk of burning out a valve.

I would be concentrating on the O2 sensors first of all, and then the MAF.

You have had an emissions test done havent you?

[Anonymous]

seriously??!? I had no idea that running lean could cause a sort of white powdery exhaust?!

As I mentioned earlier though, i hardly ever seem to have much of a vacuum in the tank, could this be related? Also, due to circumstances beyond my control (the ex!   s:oops: :oops: s:oops:  ) I've run down to the petrol light, and then some, before being able to fill up this last two times, i don't suppose some crap could have got pulled through and be blocking something?

[Anonymous]

right, the garage are having serious issues getting the manifold heatshield nuts off.   s:( s:(    apparently they've tried everything they can, but they're just too rusted/corroded and fused and stuff, they ain't budging. What they're going to do is take a grinder to em to remove em, then drill and retap.   s:? :? s:?  

I think my confidence level in this whole thing getting sorted ok is dropping as quickly as I expect my oil level will when it does get put back together again!   s:( s:(  

And, just to make life even more interesting, got a phone call from Adams brother today, to be told 2 days after I paid for the replacement main cat that he miscounted stock and they don't actually have the one he sold me!   s:shock: :shock: s:shock:    

Now, I've checked local scrapyards etc and no joy, so, what my local garage are suggesting is cutting my existing cat in half around the middle, removing all the contents then welding it back together again.   s:shock: :shock: s:shock:    Obviously this will completely fail an MOT, which he sort of winked and nodded at!   s:shock: :shock: s:shock:    s:lol: :lol: s:lol:   but I take it that it'll run ok until I can get a replacement cat sorted out?? (also, are the main cats stainless as well? would they have any problems welding it?)

Your advice as always is very much appreciated! (apart from "should've taken it to MrT!")

cheers
James

[spit]

Crikey  s:shock: :shock: s:shock:  

James, my previous offer still stands pending Adam coming through for you if its of any use over the interim.

I've also got a spare heatshield, two manifolds (and even an exhaust!) if your garage manage to completely gung-ho the whole affair. Tempted to come and sort it for you myself  s:wink: :wink: s:wink: