White smoke and smells like fire starters

[popiginis@gmail.com]

Hi all,

My 159 Jtd diesel turbo Automatic is blowing white smoke and smells toxic, like fire starters you use to start up your charcoal BBQ.
In idle while waiting at lights, it gets Embarrassingly worse... it's like the whole car is smoking up and ready to catch on fire.
When driving up a hill it doesn't have much power and feels like it strains just to get up
I've had so many dramas and spent thousands on this car. Can any suggest what is wrong with it... please I'm desperate

[festy]

My 159 Jtd diesel turbo Automatic is blowing white smoke and smells toxic, like fire starters you use to start up your charcoal BBQ.
In idle while waiting at lights, it gets Embarrassingly worse... it's like the whole car is smoking up and ready to catch on fire.
When driving up a hill it doesn't have much power and feels like it strains just to get up

I'm assuming the smoke is coming out the exhaust, not from under the bonnet?
White smoke and a kero smell sounds like un-burnt diesel in the exhaust. If its happening at idle as well as under load, my first guess would be a faulty injector.
If you have access to an IR thermometer, check the exhaust manifold temps at each cylinder while its idling and if there's an odd one out, that's likely to be the problematic injector.

[Craig_m67]

Unburnt diesel (rich) usually produces shed loads of black smoke, soot?

Could be a head gasket, this happened on my 1.9jtd
(I don't remember pope smoke or kero .. although it was a while ago)

[festy]

Black smoke/soot is over-fuelling ("running rich") causing incomplete combustion and will usually be significantly worse at certain rev/load points e.g. part throttle off boost, or high boost under heavy loads.
It can be caused by things like a bad tune, worn injectors/fuel pump, dirty air cleaner or inlet restriction, boost leak etc.

White smoke that smells like Jiffy fire starters is atomized raw diesel that did not ignite in the cylinder. This can be caused by far too much fuel being injected (damaged injector), fuel being injected at the wrong time (pump timing), or insufficient cylinder compression or temperature for ignition.
it could also be oil smoke, but that's got a grey/blue tinge and a very different smell.

If it only happens on cold startup, that usually points to one or more failed glowplugs - but could also be a leaky injector that dribbles fuel into a cylinder overnight.
A leaking valve, head/head gasket failure or glazed bore/stuck rings could reduce the compression on a cylinder and prevent ignition too.

I think I've experienced every one of these failure modes, the joys of messing around with old diesel 4x4s 

[Craig_m67]

Good explanation (thanks)