Had a smoking issue the last time I towed...

[Silver Burner]

So I wanted to ask you guys your opinion on this. I towed my 6500 lb trailer a few weeks back over Mt Hood to Prineville and back. About 180 miles each way. On the way there, the truck ran beautiful. I climbed up out of Warm Springs doing 45-50 with the EGT's running about 950-1000 the whole way. It was maybe 80 outside. Ran around Prineville the whole weekend after I parked the trailer with no problems except the morning I left, the truck decided to let go of the GP timer and she would not start. Plugged it in for an hour and then she fired right up. What happened though is after I left Prineville with the trailer on my first little climb I happened to glance out of my passenger mirror and dang near flipped out. I was rolling so much smoke out of the exhaust it was nuts. Not only that, it was all black mixed with white. Soon as I let go of the throttle the smoke disappeared. But for maybe 75 miles every time I had to climb a hill it would smoke black and white mixed and smoke HARD. Thing is, once I started climbing out of Warm Springs again and had to get the EGT's up to 1000 again, the smoke started to clear up and then it hasn't done it since. *** is up?? Did I smoke my head gaskets? It doesn't smoke like that anymore now that I'm empty. I have no oil in my radiator. Now, i haven't changed my oil yet, so I can't say if I've got a milkshake in there, but the dipstick is still coal black anyway. Thoughts??

 

[Shadetreemechanic]

SWAG
Is your turbo wastegated? If so it might have stuck open and deprived the motor of the air it needed to burn that fuel.

 

[Silver Burner]

Yeah it's a wastegated Banks Sidewinder. I wonder if that's what it was. I could still push 10-12lbs over 2500 RPM's.

 

[Full Monte]

I just had the same experience on a 600mile round trip. I was towing a boat and by the end of the trip, there was black smoke and oil all over the boat and trailer. It was with Truck 2 in signature. Banks wastegated turbo. I haven't popped the lid off the air cleaner yet to see if there was a ton of oil inside. Towcat said that was the first place to check. I'll do that. Not sure what else would do it.

 

[sle2115]

Mine did something similar also, but it was antifreeze smoke. Many have argued the fix, but with mine, it turned out to be the CDR valve. I replaced it and haven't had the problem since. It did it on a long grade pulling a 21' pontoon (not close to the heaviest load it had pulled by far) and since changing the CDR with a new one from my local stealership, it's never done it again! It sounds like yours is a fueling issue (black smoke) but mine is non turbo (at the moment) so I'm not sure what affect if any the CDR might have on it. My intake was oily inside as well.

My best WAG is that the oil was going to the rear cylinders and causing uneven expansion, thus letting the head gaskets fail. A compression test showed that all cylinders were in good shape afterwards, but I have no idea where else the antifreeze would have come from or why the CDR would have fixed it otherwise. All I can say is I've pulled the same and much heavier loads up the same grade many times since (this happened 2-3 years ago) and haven't had the same thing happen again. It did it two runs in a row though when it did it...

 

[Shadetreemechanic]

Yeah it's a wastegated Banks Sidewinder. I wonder if that's what it was. I could still push 10-12lbs over 2500 RPM's.

Don't put too much stock in that idea, it was just the first that came to mind. Did you notice a difference in your boost pressure when it was smoking?
I have had several diesels (IH, VW, MB) that I have notice they will blow serious coal for brief periods during hard acceleration and it will go away without any throttle change. But that seems to come in bursts rather than continuous smoking that is intermittent.

 

[Silver Burner]

Mine did something similar also, but it was antifreeze smoke. Many have argued the fix, but with mine, it turned out to be the CDR valve. I replaced it and haven't had the problem since. It did it on a long grade pulling a 21' pontoon (not close to the heaviest load it had pulled by far) and since changing the CDR with a new one from my local stealership, it's never done it again! It sounds like yours is a fueling issue (black smoke) but mine is non turbo (at the moment) so I'm not sure what affect if any the CDR might have on it. My intake was oily inside as well.

My best WAG is that the oil was going to the rear cylinders and causing uneven expansion, thus letting the head gaskets fail. A compression test showed that all cylinders were in good shape afterwards, but I have no idea where else the antifreeze would have come from or why the CDR would have fixed it otherwise. All I can say is I've pulled the same and much heavier loads up the same grade many times since (this happened 2-3 years ago) and haven't had the same thing happen again. It did it two runs in a row though when it did it...

OK, did a little digging on the CDR, so that will be my next little project as I've never serviced it and apparently it's a pretty important thing to do every 10-20K or so. I think my head gaskets are still ok because I get no white smoke on startup or during driving while empty. If I lug in high gear I can roll coal pretty well, but I save that for the bicyclists riding on no-shoulder roads....

 

[Kevin 007]

How about a bad batch of fuel? .....Just came to mind, doubtfull if thats it.