Hi all

Started my tin top tonight, idled fine, pulled off fine then about 100 yards down road engine started chugging and wouldn't rev, drove a bit further thinking it might be damp plugs or leads, no differance.

Stopped car and lifted bonnet, smoke coming from inlet side of engine, idle really ruff and wont rev properly, Any ideas?

I'm thinking head gasket

Adrian

When you say "smoke from inlet side" what do you mean?

Like blue oily type smoke from the block on the inlet side or steam from the block on that side or coming out the inlet tract?

Might help pin it down a bit - Iwouldnt suspect head gasket yet - ive had em go about 3 times and they've all driven fine for ages until they ran out of water!

Geoff

Hi Geoff

Smoke looked white by torch light, could't really see where it was coming from with all the inlet hoses and stuff

I'm hoping i can sneak off home early tomorrow to have a look in daylight

Adrian

Lots of smoke or could that just have been condensation evaporating away? Any oil in the coolant expansion tank, or mayonnaise in the oil filler neck? Time for a compression test I think. Good luck dude!

LIam

smoke may be a red herring... have had many problems with sticking/faulty egr valves on ecowreck engines, this would also cause a lack of power and make it run quite lumpy under load.. its worth investigating

Some Vectra engines suffer with water pump and timing belt tensioner problems . Check valve timing before attempting to start engine.

thanks for replies

I'll check timing, hadn't thought of the belt jumping

PS whats an egr valve???

Adrian

Hi again

Had a look at car, only running on cyl 1 & 4, plugs 2 & 3 were black and wet Plugs 1 & 4 black and dry, Going to try new plus tomorrow

Anyone no how the coil pack works? just wondering if it fires in pairs like ford do?

Also may have found a reason for the smoke, found a big split in the inlet hose right next to where the rocker breather joins it

Adrian

Oh good not the HG then. Vaux distributorless system is almost certainly wasted spark so fires in pairs as you suspect. Sounds like half of it's fried so get hold of a replacement coil pack and replace that split hose.

Liam

Glad to hear it's not timing belt problem