Blowin Smoke

[skyash42]

My Q has been running rough for about a week (said my wife!)then she decided to take the kids to grandma's house about 70 miles away. Well she almost made it!!! I get a call stating "the car is smoking!" Once I get to the car I find all the smoke is coming from the tail pipe, but it would start?I drove it about a 1/4 mile to a gas station and then it died completely. would not start. The electricial seems to be fine, but when it did start to get it to the gas station it would shake bad and sounded like it was running on 4 cylinders. The car was 194,000 miles on it and my question is: IS IT WORTH REPAIRING?? ps the smoke was white and smelled more like oil than anti freeze.

[elwesso]

you could have blown an injector O ring or an injector is stuck open. regardless I think its very possible to fix you just need to see if its a fuel issue or not...

[skyash42]

I hope it is something that simple? So Boss, where do I start?

[maxnix]

So Boss, where do I start?

Grab a 1994 FSM and start reading.

http://www.nicoclub.com/FSM/Q45

Then post your maintenance history. Might have the shop do a fuel pressure test. But if it is an injector lower O ring, be very careful as you could hydrolock the engine.

Color of smoke is very important as is smell.

[96Qowner]

My Q has been running rough for about a week (said my wife!)

I drove it about a 1/4 mile to a gas station and then it died completely. would not start. The electricial seems to be fine, but when it did start to get it to the gas station it would shake bad and sounded like it was running on 4 cylinders.

ps the smoke was white and smelled more like oil than anti freeze.

Sure sounds like leaking/blown injector(s). Rough running ... then heavy white smoke ... stall and rough restart ... died again and wouldn't restart.

There's a simple test to find out if an injector is shot:

Checking Fuel Injector Resistance - 1990-1996 Q45

If that test shows no bad injectors, you could still have a blown O-ring, like Wes said. Be careful. If an O-ring is blown and you try to start it, the injector can easily fill a cylinder with fuel and ruin the engine when it tries to crank.

I doubt it's something can can't be fixed for a few/several hundred bucks. It's worth repairing.

[maxnix]

ps the smoke was white and smelled more like oil than anti freeze.

That would incieate a blown head gasket, probably form overheating, which would explain the previous increasingly worse rough running condition.