Mondeo ST TDCi Problem! Help! :(

Greg

Greg

Greg

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
8,973
Morning guys,

I've got a bit of a problem. On Sunday I drove through some water that was a bit too deep for my car to cope with. In heindsight, I think it would have been alright, I just drove through it a bit too fast. As I left the water and put my foot down, the car just died.

Luckily I could leave it by the side of the road, as I was almost at work and left it for 12 hours or so to 'dry out'(!). When I got back, it turned over and started just about. I drove it back to my work and let the car run on idle for about 20 minutes, during which out of the exhaust was a nice constant poof of white smoke/steam (I could tell it was water because when I put hand in the smoke it left my hand all damp).

I let the car get up to temperature and then gave it a good 'progressive' drive home (not a thrashing, but not tarting about). When I toed it a bit, obviously the rest of the water that was in the airfilter came through and i got nice smoke out the back, but by the time I got home, it was fine and there was no noticable abnormal smoke at all!

I started her up yesterday afternoon and the car was really really ropey and rattely sounding. The smoke that came out the back was blue and it sounded like a few months ago before I had the injectors changed. (Not sure if you are familiar with the Ford TDCi problem with the injectors, but if you don't, not to worry.)

The car is really quite bad untill it gets warm and looks as if its burning oil untill it gets to temperature. Onces its warm and up to normal operating temperature it drives fine. I'm not sure about the economy becuase its only been a few days and I'm lift sharing this week so I'm not driving her that much.

You guys got any ideas/suggestions?

Many thanks

Greg
 
Water and diesel engines don't like each other. I really would not have run the engine with water still in the air filter. Can you get it compression tested? You may have destroyed the rings in a cylinder or crack a piston.
 
jwilliams said:
Have you checked your oil for water contamination?
Click to expand...

I've taken off the oil cap and looked in the top, there was slight scum in the top with the oil, but then again, i don't to very long runs most of the time.

I've wiped it clean and I'll take it for a slight run tonight after work and see what develops.

Its funny that when it gets warm, its fine.

thanks

Greg
 
Greg said:
Its funny that when it gets warm, its fine.

thanks

Greg
Click to expand...

Could it be that when its warm the water has evaporated so you dont notice, but when cold the water has condensed so is mixed with the oil? Maybe if you take off the filler cap with the engine hot the water vapour might escape?

Than again I know little about engines so that might be utter tosh :p
 
worst case is you've got water in the cylinder block. Water doesnt compress very well (well not at all actually) so on the compression cycle the water gets forced out. This could well have done the headgaskets, valves etc..
 
Well this is what I'm thinking! If water (and i mean more than actually got in there by the means of a soggy airfilter) actually got into the engine i'd have been screwed. I didn't hear any loud bangs, so i think it might be pretty safe to say that i've not got any broken hydrolics. Its strange that its only when the engine is cold that its rattly and crap.

I think what im going to do is:

1) Take it out for a drive tonight, let it warm up gently, then go for a steady drive for a few miles then back to my flat, let the car cool down and take off the oil cap. See if theres mayo in the cap or what have you.

2) Only make essencial journies until:

3) The car goes in for a checkup at the garage on tuesday.

Fingers crossed guys!! I have no luck with cars! :(
 
metal expands when it heats

you could have warped the head slightly. So much so that when cold oil gets in, Engine heats up and expands, and closes the gap possibly ?

not sure if this is the correct diagnosis, but it sounds plasible to me. You could have to get the head skimmed.
 
I suspect you've probably bent a conrod slightly and the blue smoke is as a result of a lack of compression when cold. As things heat up, the compression increases and it runs OK.

Even a small amount of water ingested into these engines is enough to do serious damage, and running it to burn off the water is probably the worst thing you can do.

I can't see it affecting the injectors which is the only other thing that realistically would cause it to run rough only when cold. If it's OK when warm then the turbo is OK.

I suspect it may be new short motor time unfortunately.
 
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