Smoke in engine bay

[sarahandthebear]

Our 1984 1.9 dg has been sat for a month and yeasterday I went and started her up. All fluids were fine and she had a little trouble starting but eventually jumped into life. I let it run with the engine bay open and was having a look making sure all was well. Suddenly after running for about a minute we smelled smoke and it started to come out of two places. Both sides of the exhaust system were started to let out white smoke but not out of the tailpipe. I turned the engine off straight away and to be honest have no idea what may have been going on in there. Maybe some oil burning off or more worryingly something heating up inside? Any ideas to what this is or could be causing this

[Mocki]

Just steam from condensation, leaking of poor zorst joints , as the engine heats the zorst sup it will expand and seal up , and by then the condensation will have evaporated and gone

[sarahandthebear]

Just steam from condensation, leaking of poor zorst joints , as the engine heats the zorst sup it will expand and seal up , and by then the condensation will have evaporated and gone

Thanks mocki there was a lot of smoke coming from both sides and it did smell like burning. from what you have said though it makes a lot of sense and our exhaust is a bit on the knackered side it seems more like smoke to me though? I think I got worried in case the oil was not getting arround the engine and it was overheating

[Mr Bean]

Big clue here is how far way from the source it "goes away". Steam will fizzle out in a few feet while smoke in much more pervasive. When my engine appeared to blow up when bombing down the motorway I was convinced that I had an engine bay fire. But by the time I had bullied my way across onto the hard shoulder the "smoke" had gone away and the last of the coolant was trickling out.

[Mocki]

Did it do it just once ?
Was this after you had changed the water pump ?
Oily fingers on things that then get hot makes smokey ness for a few mins , as does spilled coolant on the zorst ....

[sarahandthebear]

No I have not changed the pump yet I just started it up again and the same thing happend I’ll try send some pictures of the locations of the smoke



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[sarahandthebear]

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[Mocki]

pictures of the smoke would be more useful....

is the same smoke coming out of the end of the exhaust too\???

[sarahandthebear]

I tried to capture the smoke but it would not show up on the camera unfortunately. It smells and is white but dose not come out of the end of the exhaust. The heat gage was reading normal as well

[Oldiebut goodie]

Get a drop or two of your antifreeze from your spare bottle in the shed and drop some on the hot exhaust - if it is the same smell you know what it is. ( then you can start looking for leaks if it is coolant )