I was told my truck was blowing white smoke due to a leak near the turbo so I sprayed some starting fluid around the air sleaner and turbo well it made the engine rpm go up and made a lous clacking sound now i have what sounds like a lifter starving for oil it ticks did i do permament damage to my engine i feel like an idiot what did I do ?

What kind of starting fluid? Ether? Or did you use WD-40?

Ether can have disastrous consequences on an engine equipped with glowplugs(I believe thats the reason). I had a 6.2L block laying around that my neighbour gave to me for parts. He spent the winter starting it with ether, then chased cattle through a muddy field in the spring for a day. It ended up throwing a rod, and the only things left on it that were any good were the timing gears, and the injection pump.

Not to scare you or anything ;)

Describe white smoke better and when it happens ie engine temp. and outside air temp.

Starting fluid is really bad when the glow plugs are lighting on start up or after glow. But if no glowplugs a bit of starting fluid shouldn't kill it. Don't use ether. There are better alternatives ie wd-40 or the oily variety with top cylinder lubricant. Should use sparingly and w/o glowplugs.

A turbo has positive intake pressure so it won't suck in air like a gasser with an intake leak. Not sure what you were trying to diagnose with that test.

Just guessing you probably have a head gasket leak. The starting fluid probably preignited harshly a little before top dead center and stressed it further and now the leak is worse. Probably one or more cylinders is misfiring.

Look over FAQ's I think there is something about headgasket diagnosis. How fast the top radiator hose gets hard on start up. Coolant loss and smoke color etc.

Post back what you learn.

it was not wd-40 and all I know is there is not a lifter making noise it sounds like.

The noise was not there before the white smoke is always there a little black also in there.

temp in and out would be about 90 around here right now.

the truck was running for w hile when the starting fluid was sprayed around the intake looking for leaks so does that mean the glow plugs were off ?

I appc the help guys. B

cumbustable fluids KILL A TURBO DIESEL. My duddies cummins got dry start fuel condition, so he sprayed a spritz of fuel in the air box, KABOOM! Instant bent rod. It did not take much and the engine revved to like 6000 RPM it sounded like.

ok, think about this for a sec,

Diesel engines DO NOT have a way to regulate air flow (I.E. no butterfly type throttle plate or other method to regulate air flow)

Engine speed is controlled by FUEL DELIVERY, you added more fuel in an uncontrolled manner causing an uncontrolled RPM rise.

the clattering you are hearing is probably a result from over revving the engine and the valves and pistons meeting (engine over speed will cause the valves to "float" (they can't seat fast enough or bounce when they do)), causing (at very least), bent valve push rods, thus now resulting in excessive play between the lifters and the push rods.

using starting fluid (ETHER) can have catistrphic results when starting ANY engine, but spraying it in a RUNNING engine is almost a garuntee of damage. The stuff shouldn't be sold to the genral public, as most folks have no idea how to use it properly.

As for the white smoke, that would be an indication of too much fuel and not enough heat to burn the fuel (hot burn would be black)

Things to check, see if you can isolate which cyl(s) is/are having the issue ( either by using a scan tool to cancel cyl, or by cracking fuel line and bleeding off pressure to each cyl while engine running), a compression test would be pretty helpful as well. if compression is even across the board, odds are you have injector that isn't up to snuff.

figure out how much damage was done witht he ether shot first, then go for the smoking hole.

Kevin
FORMER GM tech

so take it to a shop and have them check for the sound is that correct ?

Yep. The biggest problem with ether in a TD is that the glowplugs will ignite it on the way IN, which means it'll 'fire' on the intake stroke... the diesel will then fire as soon as the injector pops (BIG TIME Pre-ignition)... that's where you get bent rods from. The stuff is hell on TDs.

As for the clicking sound, I bet you screwed up an injector... they don't like it when the cylinder is on fire when they're injecting. Either bleed while running or shut 'em down one-at-a-time with a Tech-II. Either way, you should get a decent tech to look at it... I'll bet it's not the first time they've seen this, and they'll know what to look for. (Why is it that the when the sign on the intake says DON'T EVER USE STARTING FLUID and the can says "safe for diesel engines", people believe the friggin can?)

Good post above on positive pressure - there is no good reason to use ether to 'check for intake leaks' on a TD, because if they're leaking, they're leaking OUT, not IN.

As for over-revving, you haven't LIVED until you've been in a diesel truck downwind from a blowing gas well... somebody bled a sweet gas well to atmosphere without looking at the wind when I was driving a Kenworth near a wellhead once... I felt like I was at Indy for the 5 seconds it took me to figure out what was going on and lock the brakes to stall it... you can't shut 'em off (they run on the methane, so fuel shut-offs don't matter) and they rev at about a million rpm). Ether when running does the same thing.

If all you did was wreck an injector, consider that a cheap lesson.

my VW instructon book tells me to loosen one injector line at a time until the white smoke stops. You might find a bad injector. Or determine its not an injector. It also works for determining a noise problem.

I bet you screwed up an injector... they don't like it when the cylinder is on fire when they're injecting.

Forgive my ignorance, but I thought the injectors continued to spray fuel long after ignition had been initiated?

I think I read that in a book somewhere.

One of the first rules for Diesels is you NEVER put starting fluid in there. Its clearly marked in the manual and on the engine.

Forgive my ignorance, but I thought the injectors continued to spray fuel long after ignition had been initiated?

I think I read that in a book somewhere.

Not ignorance, Ratman ... you might be right - I'm not a diesel mechanic. I'm just going on what the old company mech told me about diesel injection cycles... the old fart also warned me about starting fluid, and that's the explanation he used - I'm just passing it on, 'cause it made sense to me. From the way I got it, the injectors close about when the ignition/last comression starts.

He could still be wrong, but he was a pretty sharp old mechanic.

Now multiport GAS engines I don't know squat about... sure the book was about diesel injection?

Not ignorance, Ratman ... you might be right - I'm not a diesel mechanic. I'm just going on what the old company mech told me about diesel injection cycles... the old fart also warned me about starting fluid, and that's the explanation he used - I'm just passing it on, 'cause it made sense to me. From the way I got it, the injectors close about when the ignition/last comression starts.

He could still be wrong, but he was a pretty sharp old mechanic.

Now multiport GAS engines I don't know squat about... sure the book was about diesel injection?

Man, now I'm curious about the whole injection thing. I agree with you 110% on the ether starting fluid, -bad bad bad. One of the guys I used to work with thought it was real cute to spray a whiff of that stuff into the pre-filter of a John Deere 350B cat we used to have (after it was running). Shortly thereafter, the engine had a substantial knock. Turns out that one of the pistons cracked around the wristpin hole. That idiot didn't work for us for too much longer after that incident.

I have always shy'd away from using the stuff, -even on gassers.

The last time I used it was on a buddies slant-six that was a POS to begin with. I think it had something like over 400k on it, -and she was tired. At that point, neither he or I really cared what happened to the motor as a result of using ether.

As for over-revving, you haven't LIVED until you've been in a diesel truck downwind from a blowing gas well... somebody bled a sweet gas well to atmosphere without looking at the wind when I was driving a Kenworth near a wellhead once... I felt like I was at Indy for the 5 seconds it took me to figure out what was going on and lock the brakes to stall it... you can't shut 'em off (they run on the methane, so fuel shut-offs don't matter) and they rev at about a million rpm). Ether when running does the same thing.
Now that's interesting. Here's another diesel story. Sometimes the diesel trucks where my Dad worked would start themselves overnight! It was rare but happened more than once. This was in the 70's and these were GMC cabs and it happened most often in cold weather. More than once he came home moaning about a truck that had started itself overnight and because it had been left in gear it had run into the first immovable object it found - usualy the terminal building wall. Because the diesel had so much torque even at idle it would sit with its nose to the wall and spin all eight drive wheels all night long and wear out the tires! Diesels are very interesting critters.

strange....how did they manage to start themselves? Faulty starter wiring or something else?

--nevermind...read the other related topic, sorry.

Forgive my ignorance, but I thought the injectors continued to spray fuel long after ignition had been initiated?

I think I read that in a book somewhere.
There was a previous thread about the noise of 6.5s and I posted the following after having done some Googling about engine design and diesel noise:

The pre-combustion chambers used in modern engines like the 6.5L quieten them a lot by spreading the combustion event over time. Injection systems more sophisticated than the 6.5's allow fuel to be injected at varying rates during the combustion cycle. Slow at first for initial ignition and then faster for power. The 6.5s just get a slug of fuel, bang! That is probably the main reason the common-rail diesels are so quiet - not because the injectors are mechanically quieter (although they may be) but because their high-pressure injectors can spread out the combustion event.

Biodiesel also makes the engines quieter. I am totally guessing but it may be because it is slower burning so that, again, the combustion shock is spread out over a longer time.

Believe it or not the 6.5 engines are really pretty quiet! My dad was a diesel mechanic in my youth and I still remember the noise of those engines that must have been manufactured in the 40s and 50s. No pre-combustion chambers and mechanical injectors that delivered fuel all at once right to the top of the cylinder head...Whew!

There was a previous thread about the noise of 6.5s and I posted the following after having done some Googling about engine design and diesel noise:

The pre-combustion chambers used in modern engines like the 6.5L quieten them a lot by spreading the combustion event over time. Injection systems more sophisticated than the 6.5's allow fuel to be injected at varying rates during the combustion cycle. Slow at first for initial ignition and then faster for power. The 6.5s just get a slug of fuel, bang! That is probably the main reason the common-rail diesels are so quiet - not because the injectors are mechanically quieter (although they may be) but because their high-pressure injectors can spread out the combustion event.


instarx, thanks for posting this. It now makes a lot more sense, -in fact, it makes perfect sense. Utilizing the pre-cup to control the flame-front into the combustion chamber. For what the designers had to work with at the time, it's a marvelous design. It certainly pales in comparison to the new common rail systems of today, but is still pretty dang impressive.

Learning about what makes these things tick is an inredible learning experience. Luckily (for me and many others), this forum has quite a few members that really know their stuff. Thanks for being here! :hail: