Strange Smoking.

[Brian Wolf]

Wondering if the Sport Trac Gremlin hit me or something worse...



02 4x4, 154K miles.



Tuesday night, nothing strange, all OK, and park the trac for the night.



Wednesday morning, I turn the key, and it doesn't start.

I try again, and when it kicks in, I press the gas a little to keep it going. It feels like it wants to run, and I can keep it roughly running holding in on the gas, but let off, and it dies.

When it's running, I'm getting LOADS of gray smoke coming out the tail pipe. ( Kind of looks like Cigarette smoke colored )



I try 2 or three times, and the same thing. Figured something was broken, and it's going to be expensive.

After calling into work, that I'm not going to be there, I figure I'll check it out, and see what's up.

I turn the key, and it starts right up, everything is fine. Been driving two days with no issues... No check engine lights, power is normal, acting like nothing ever happened.



Wonder if I got some water in the gas, or something else. Who knows.

For now, writing it off as the Sport Trac gremlin.



We'll see.. if it does it again any time soon, I'll take it to get checked out.

 

[David Ponder]

Wolf,



First, check the oil and see if there is any water in the oil. If it is grayish or milky color, you have a bigger problem.



If it looks normal, and it wont idle, I would check the IAC first from there.



Dave

 

[Thomas Rogers]

Blown head gasket?



TJR

 

[Todd Z]

Sounds like the IAC motor gramlin......



Clean the IAC...



Todd Z

 

[Brian Wolf]

I just changed the oil about two weeks ago, but going to check it, just to be sure. Yes, I could see that being an ugly problem.



I've already changed that pesky IAC once. I don't remember it causing smoke, but that was years ago.



I'm thinking of doing a tune up, maybe this weekend, then I can see if there are any liquids that shouldn't be there.



Hopefully it's just angry because I haven't cleaned it out for a while. :0

 

[Brian Wolf]

I'm going to go ahead and clean ( or maybe replace ) that IAC today after work.

 

[Wolf Wilder]

Blown head gasket?

That's the first thing that came to mind when I read this..



I had a Ford Ranger that did the exact same thing..the water was getting into the exhaust port..



It would do it a time a two..smoke like crazy..then for no reason just go back to running fine..then a day or two later..it would return..

 

[Brian Wolf]

Well... Just an update...

It's been a week. It hasn't happened again... Yet.



I treated it to a nice engine cleaning today.