rich / smoke at start up
 

Started the truck up today, 21F outside. For the first 1min atleast, noticeably blueish / rich smoke out the tail pipe with a very distinctive diesel smell. Truck was not plugged in. Truck has a muffler but no kitty

If I were to guess, I would say the smoke / smell was due to unburned fuel

Is this normal? I guess I never noticed this before but maybe this is normal until warm up.

Thanks

SAS

Sounds like you may have an injector that is week. Keep an eye on it.

Yeah, probably fills your cylinder with fuel at shutdown. Any fuel in your oil???

My truck did the same thing last night after sitting for 10 hours at work and starting at 12F. It put on a bigger smoke show starting at -4F last winter in the same situation. It only does it on cold starts(no heater cord) well below freezing and clears up quickly as the cylinder temp comes up. It sounds pretty normal to me for an unplugged truck starting well below freezing. I have seen several other 2nd and 3rd gen cummins do the same thing. Unless you start having constant issues or your oil level is rising, I would not worry about your injectors.

My truck is fine in every way but at -40 it will do that a bit at idle.

THAT's IT!!!! It's NORMAL!!!! [laugh]

Man I have to get my truck FIXED!!!!!

Mine won't smoke even when I started it on new year's eve when the temperature was -12 below zero... Something is very wrong with my truck I guess..... [coffee]

Mine did a similar thing this weekend. parked it in my driveway int he mtns. and didnt drive it all weekend. temps were below freezing at night and highs of low 40s during the day. fired it up on Sunday to go home and it smoked a lot at first then went away once it was warmed up.

Was it plugged in? Maybe you poured all of your maturity into the fuel tank?

No it wasn't plugged in.
Don't confuse immaturity with a complete reluctance to conform like sheep.... [nonono]

After sitting outside for 8+ hours unplugged at -12F, your truck starts with zero smoke? I do not think there are many forum members that would believe your claim. I am also assuming that you get 20mpg towing at 70mph. After reading several of your posts in the past, it is clear that you prefer to post self-serving opinions or untested theories instead of offering real world experiences to help other forum members. In short, your posts are misleading BS and I fail to see what they have to do with your supposed nonconformist agenda.

I really don't care how many people believe whether my truck smokes in cold weather or not. I offered the experience for a basis of fact allowing others to formulate their own opinions. It does not smoke, considering the advent of smoke being anything other that condensation burn-off which is normal for all heat generating devices.

Never-enuf clearly stated his smoke was bluish - rich with a distinctive diesel smell and he has never noticed this before. I admit I was interested to see if someone would state that this is completely normal as there seems to be a pattern of contributions offering that almost anything is normal, as long as their truck does it also.

If you notice, I have an '06 truck with a tuner, perhaps that explains the difference in experiences. Again, I am just relaying my experience with my contribution.

You sir are doing something called flaming, which is neither constructive nor appreciated and tends to degrade any forum. Hopefully it made you feel better.

May your injectors live long and prosper. :D

Thanks for the response guys - Truck has 160K+ on it with no injector service. When idling, it tends not to be smooth. I know it is a diesel but once it a while it will sound like it hick up's / like miss fire on a gaser engine. To verify the leakage rate of the injectors, can this be performed while in the truck or do they need to be pulled?

Thanks
SAS

Mine will put out a very light blue smoke at start up (looking at it in my mirror) if I don't wait for the grid heater to cycle at temps at or colder then 5 degrees and it has not been started in the last 24 hours.