Reasons for Emitting White smoke

In an external-combustion engine, the white is the exhaust steam condensing, and the black is usually the result of insufficient secondary air at the firebox; ideally the fire(wo)man will deal with the latter by managing the fuel/air situation to reduce the black.

A road vehicle last week was spotted emitting copious quantities of grey smoke before slowing down and pulling off the road. Grey smoke from an internal-combustion engine is often an indicator of an oil seal failure or a head gasket failure, presenting the cylinders with lube oil or, worse, a lube-oil-and-water mixture to burn.

Badly-tuned compression-ignition engines often emit dark-coloured smoke as the result of incomplete combustion of the atomised fuel. Emissions are the cause of poor air quality in cities, and while London and many others have largely dealt with the situation, many others have a looser grip on emissions controls. With the greatest of respect to local contributors to CR4, a recent walk through part of Lima in Peru indicated a significant opportunity to take action; there are many others...

I think what you mean is, the engine is not running correctly for any number of reasons. Or, as we say over here, its totally fubb.

Is fubb an acronym, and what sort of problems does its emission cause?

It is an acronym, the last 3 words are up beyond belief. So it's omission is to be desired.

Here it's fubar: effed up beyond all recognition.

The term came about prior to WWII (according to Wikipedia) as being used be telephone repairmen to describe situations they were supposed to fix. I personally believe it came about with the rapid expansion of the military in WWII and its penchant for acronyms. This is partly the result of having spent way too many years in the military and partly from considering the variations on JANFU and JAAFU - Joint Army-Navy FU and Joint Army-Air Force FU. Believe me, these abound and could easily have given rise to their own acronyms, borrowing from SNAFU, TARFU, and FUBAR.

FUBAR is the third in a progression of terms used to describe bad situations. First, there is SNAFU -- Situation Normal, All ** Up, then TARFU -- Things Are Really ** Up, followed by FUBAR as the ultimate in bad.

But I like "fubb" although it sounds dangerously close to the words it represents. maybe that is part of the allure.

White smoke means the new Pope has been elected, black smoke means they're still voting.

Or they haven't run out of chops for the barbecue yet............

Tut, tut, tut!

It sounds like you need a tune up.

dear bhankiii,

did you get up very optimisticall today??? where I live, white smoke means more or less a disaster: there is either oil or water (or both) passing into the cylinders...

My advise: get rid of the car!

White smoke means the chili is just right. Black smoke means "bring me more beer."

Ahhh......carbon crunchies.........get those free radicals moving!

If its a compression ignition engine ( thats tek talk for diesel engine) the following rules apply to exhaust emissions;

Black smoke excess (unburnt fuel), from dribbly or worn injectors or simply an overloaded engine; Blue smoke, burnt oil, from worn inlet valve guides, worn rings on pistons, or glazed cyinder walls from light load; White smoke from condensate (or water leak) in the intake manifold or combustion chamber

Lots more we could add, but that's probably sufficient?

If the white smoke is only there on start up & whilst the system is heating up it's just condensation & quite normal. If it persists after the engine is up to temperature you have a water leak into the engine which could indicate an imminent head gasket failure or some other breach of the cooling system.

If white smoke persists after warming up it might not be steam if it hangs around in the air for a long time.

I had a problem getting my narrowboat diesel engine started (it had just been overhauled but not tested) and when it did get going it pumped out billowing clouds of white smoke that hung around for ages and ages (lt was a calm day) (and if smelt of diesel fumes).

I checked this with a BMC 1.5L engine specialist and he said that could happen with a rebuilt engine if the timing gears were reassembled wrong. it could be running retarded. So advance the ignition (pump) until the smoke disappears (and then retard a fraction to avoid excessive knocking).

It worked - no smoke at all - of any colour.

However, advancing the timing was not easy, because everything was locked up rigid so I used a broom handle in amongst the injector pipes to lever it round. Very primitive.

As a sequel, 20 years later (only last week) the piston in No.4 cylinder was found to be shattered. It was broken into hundreds of pieces - but the engine kept running apparently. The con rod had worn a groove in the cylinder wall to allow water into the engine - that mixed with the oil to make emulsion. Nothing was done at the time and the engine was left unused over the Winter. And then not surprisingly - it did not want to start when we tried last week.

But it did get going (believe it or not) now with billowing clouds of smoke of all colours - and a few strange noises.

All the signs pointed to a leaking cylinder head gasket. The shattered piston was found when the head was lifted off.

Fubb - Fubar - etc from previous postings seem appropriate.

Piston broke sums up my situation.

Generally speaking; wkite smoke from an automobile's tail pipe means anti-freeze in the combustion chamber. If rhe car has an aluminum head this can be disasterous...(aluminum and anti=freeze or water create an extremely high combustion temp and will seriously erode the head.

Black smoke could be several things depending on when and under what circumstances you are experiencing it.

It has been my experience that the differnt colors of exhaust gases emitted from the tail pipe of an internal combustion engine, indicate different malfunctions.

1. White-Blue~ This could be caused by a broken diaphram on a vacuum advance switch, that may be sucking transmission oil into the exhaust manifold. The tramission oil is being burned in the manifold and burns with a white-blue gas emition.

2. Blue-Black~ See previous post on oil buring in combustion chambers.

3. Blue-Gray~ If this is coming from the passenger driver compartment, it means that some is either smoking a cigar or a large blunt!

If the car stops smoking it is a sign that oil must be added.