Rebuilt diesel blue smoke and rattle only sometimes

[IH3444]

Sounds like it was all done properly. The turbo usually has oil pumped to it for lube, and cooling. Sticking flapper, or waste gate sticking. I did a friends turbo rebuild years ago. Clean up, polish shafts, new seals for his skid steer. It went fine. Maybe a good clean up and new seals for yours.

 

[clinter36]

Just talked to a "turbo rebuilding guy"... and he said that the crank case vent can cause this problem because it backs up the oil drain to the turbo which in turn pushes oil through the turbo. OK, now that makes perfect sense, except I don't think there is much of a crank case vent valve. As far as I can tell, there is just an open tube from the valve cover that pushes the vent down the side of the engine - and I have had literally every single nut and bolt off this motor, so I would think I would notice, but maybe somehow its clogging up. I guess I will have to investigate that further.

 

[crashz]

I would rule out all internal engine issues since the issue comes and goes. You'd think rings or valve seals so bad that smoke, would do it all the time. You may be onto something with the oil drain from the turbo, as excess oil will be force fed into the intake side. You'd be able to verify this simply by taking the intake off of the compressor side of the turbo. If its dry, its not your turbo. Wet, turbo seals.

The intermittent thing has me bothered though. I'd look at the injection pump and wiring to the shut-off solenoid, just to check.

 

[clinter36]

That is what makes perfect sense about the oil drain/crank vent. When the circumstances are just right (RPM, Load, incline, etc), the oil pressure builds up for whatever reason, shut the motor down and it drains back down until it builds up again.

its easy enough to pull the oil drain and just make sure some kind of shmutz didn't pass into there although I don't see how thats possible, you never know.

 

[dodge man]

I agree, pull the pressure hose off the turbo and see if it’s wet with oil and feeding it into the engine.