need advice on smoking A4

[David Glubrecht]

While I have only seen this on older cars, The symptoms are the same as my 
90 90q 20v that probably has too much blow by and had a clogged oil 
separator in the EGR system. (180k miles)
You should be able to find it if you search for "Oil separator"
but I have poor luck with the archives.
I was able to bring the smoking down from a Bond style smoke screen to 
hardly noticeable.
I have no idea where your separator is, but I am sure there is one and it 
can't hurt to clean it.  Usually they are part of the valve cover requiring 
drilling rivets or breaking spot welds to access.

 Dave G

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "no1of consequence" <iin10ded at hotmail.com>
To: <quattro at audifans.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2005 11:59 PM
Subject: need advice on smoking A4


> should i roll it or use a vaporizer? ;-)
>
> any input appreciated, i'm trying to diagnose the car w/out pulling head 
> off it. patient is a 98 a4 1.8t. quat, 5spd with 108k. it started smoking 
> the other day, i noticed a puff at startup, and a bit thereatfer, after a 
> minute or so it would stop. it pretty much never smokes when driving 
> around.
>
> now.. if i leave it idle for several minutes it will smoke consistently. a 
> nice steady stream of whitish, acrid smelling smoke. it doesnt smell like 
> coolant. no 'steamy' quality to the smell. on the road for a minute and 
> the smoking stops. it seems once the car gets some air then no smoke.
>
> i poked around tonight and found..
> - plugs are furry white. i got the car a month ago so these could be 
> original for all i know. pics at:
> http://www.pbase.com/thejimrose/a4
> - no oil in coolant that i can see. i assume i would see an oil slick when 
> peering into the fill cap, no?
> - no white foaminess on the oil fill cap. car uses a good bit of oil tho.. 
> maybe 1/2 qt every 1k ?
> - no oil in turbo outlet hose [that runs to the IC]. i didnt check the 
> turbo intake hose [cold side]. does this mean the seals are ok? could the 
> turbo seals be bad and pissing oil into the exh. manifold?
> - air filter and airbox were immaculate.
>
> i did just have the cat rewelded where the pipe tends to break coming out 
> of the turbo. the top of the pipe was welded in the car. could htis have 
> zapped the turbo seals? are welders meaningfully hotter than a spinning 
> turbo? i really want this to be a turbo problem so i can replace it with a 
> ko4 and not a motor problem, if that has any effect on the opinions. =)
>
> help? thanx..
> jim
>
>
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