Mechanical CAT, smoke at idle

They will haze warming up from cold.
But in no way should they haze after its up to temp.
The original post , he says it will do that hot if it idles for a bit. Look at his pic, thats not NORMAL.

 

My 84 will smoke like that if below freezing but after 10 minutes idle will clear right up. Close to a 1,000,000 mi. and never been touched except bearings.

 

Lol, it's their money they are literally making "go up in smoke".

One of our mechanics drives a 2006 Duramax and while it makes a lot of noise, it burns clean. When a diesel mechanic who rebuilds CAT's and works on Paccar MX's for a living doesn't even roll coal, you know it's probably not a good idea.

 

I agree with swaan and woreout; I have owned four mechanical Cats, one A model and the rest Bs, and they all have a blue-ish tint after starting cold. The colder it is the more they smoke, but after being warm they do not smoke.
A couple of years ago one of them began to smoke when idled after being warm, and it also began to have a lot of blow-by. It turned out to be that the #1 cylinder was was moving in the block, and that the liner O-rings had eroded the block and evidently were allowing compression past the O-rings into the pan. It had been overhauled at some point before I owned it, and evidently not enough attention was given to liner protrusion. I am not a mechanic, so there may have been other causes for the blow-by and idle smoke, but that is the conclusion that I came up with. It did have reman nozzles with under 50K miles on them. Also, not that non-Cat shops or mechanics don't do a good job on overhauls, but there was no record of the overhaul on Cat's system so I assume a non-Cat shop did the work.
The smoking while idling after the engine is warm would concern me, and I would likely start with nozzles, as one that is not sealing after popping could potentially cause the smoke? I put that as a question because I am not sure. Maybe @swaan or @wore out could confirm this.

 

@Oxbow is on to something I think. After it warms up and should have quit cracking injector lines one at a time to see if the smoke quits may help determine if it's a weak cylinder. Being a fresh engine it's possible only one is causing the smoke.

 

The meter has a probe that goes in the timing hole where you pin the flywheel. Then you put the clamp on 1or 6. The probe senses when the flywheel hole comes around and clamp measures when the injector pops by vibration. The hole in flywheel doesn't know the difference in 1/6 because they fire opposite of each other.

The mark on balancer just makes it easier for one person to pin time it is all. If they are turning it off a balancer bolt not using a flywheel turning tool pining the flywheel can be a ##### for one man. If you go to far then you have to back way up to start over to get the preload right.

 

Kind of the same principal as a timing light in the automotive world?

 

Yes, it will also make a graph of the time and how it advances in 100 rpm intervals that you can compare to what it's supposed to be according to your OT-spec