Alrighty, I went for a small road trip yesterday (300miles) The motor was running real strong until I really stepped on it going about 90mph then I felt a slight hesitation. Then It started to hesitatate at a lower speed but only when I was accelarating or going up a steep incline. I thought to myself must be a dirty fuel filter? Then it stated to hesitate at 70 then 65 then there was no response from the engine, oh yeah lots of white smoke when this happened. I stopped halfway and noticed the oil level was low, like 2 quarts. Filled up... drove back home and the truck would do 30, i pull over let it idle a bit and cont. runs... I've got about 100miles to go, i'll just baby it home... Then dead, won't even idle. I try starting it and make it to a home depot & call the tow truck. The parking lot is wet and i see those oil rainbow spot under the truck and slowly moving down the lot. I'm thinking maybe I have a fuel line leak and the pump was sucking air? I look under the truck this morning and see no fuel driping, but lots of engine oil, the friggen oil filter is at least one full turn loose. I'm going to change the fuel filter today anyways but I'm thinking the problem was possible low oil pressure from the loose filter which caused defueling??? If a 12v is even capable of doing so? What do I do? What do you think? I guess I should refill the oil level and tighten the filter and see if it does it again?

 

did you notice low oil psi? did you take a look at coolant?

 

I didn't notice oil pressure drop, but that doesn't mean it didn't drop, engine temps seemed okay also. Irrelavant probably, but when I stopped at a light GEN light came on and voltage was like 17volts, scared me a little but went back down in a few minutes. Whats with the coolant level? I know my BMW did bog down if engine temps got too high.

 

well there's no electronics to the p-pump so there is no such thing as defueling. does the truck run now. i mentioned the coolant cause i was thinking head gasket with white smoke, if the coolant got on top of the piston then it would cause a hydro-lock. engine wont turn over.

 

maybe the smoke was just oil hitting on something that was hot,i lost a freeze plug on my head, and i was on my way to school whena bunch of white smoke started spewing out of under the hood and reached my hand back there and freeze plug and hot coolant spraying out.let cool down pulled out some jb weld patched it took off head fixed with titanium freeze plug and wham done.

 

good point on smoke but dosn't really explain the loss of power though, these engines will run untill they seize up, mechanical engine. no coolant, no oil, dosnt matter it'll run if it can.

 

White smoke is an indication of retarded timing. Low power would be as well. Timing slipped?

 

Tate may have hit it. Perhaps there was enough of a drop in oil pressure that the p pump may have had internal damage. It is one of the highest points of the oiling system that recieves circulating oil.

This is a longshot worst-case scenario, but maybe the IP was starved of oil and eventually wore down the cam lobes inside of it, which would cause a retard in timing and eventually very little lift on the plunger assembly which would in turn cause a no start condition.

OR... what I thought was completely wrong and the oil filter happened to back off and dump oil everywhere, which would hopefully be an independent event and the timing just slipped on your IP.

OR... the fuel filter was clogged and was independent to the oil filter loosening up, which just starved the engine of fuel eventually. If it stumbled at first under load it was lacking fuel, then eventually the filter plugged up so badly that it wouldn't pass fuel. I sure hope that this is the case!!! Good luck and let us know what you find.

 

Yes, start by checking coolant level and color. next, check engine oil color. should be black or caramel, not white and milky.

I'll bet you are getting air, perhaps the same guy tightened your fuel and oil filter?

White smoke can be air in the system, take a good look at the fuel lines.

 

White smoke is a sign of moisture burning in your engine or exhaust system. For example when you start your truck up in the early morning and get on it you get white smoke, that is all the condensation evaporating. So when you start to get white smoke that means you are burning some sort of water. just like if you had black smoke, means you are burning fuel. I could be wrong but I have never seen a big rig with a loss of fuel burn white, it could possibly be grey? Maybe? But White is definately water/coolant. Why it happened when you started to lose oil is probably because you cracked a head when it was loosing lubrication, I have seen that. So let me know how it goes!

 

You get white smoke when fuel isn't combusted completely. If the injection occurs too late, when the piston is already on the downstroke, the air inside the cylinder is cooling rapidly, much of the fuel isn't burned and just blown out the exhaust. White smoke is a common sympton of a bad VP44, which looses control of the timing. Air in the lines will also cause retarded timing since the air will compress much more than the fuel.