Smoke, lots of it

[Adam CD P1]

On cold starts I get tonnes of white smoke along with a sweet smell. On instinct I think it's the water/coolant mixture.

However I'm not sure what the problem is exactly cause it only lasts till the temp gauge is at around 80 degrees.

The smoke is only coming out of the exhaust so I'm thinking maybe a leaky head gasket or thermostat could be gone ?

The fan kicks in just over 90 degrees and the temp hovers around that figure.

Any ideas what this could be before I pull it apart lol ?

[Toms306]

Thermostat sounds fine if it's sitting at 90.

Sure it's not just a rich petrol smell with a bit of condensation as well? The TU's do tend to blow quite a bit of white steam when cold.

Other alternative is the headgasket but I doubt it's that if it's fine when warmed up. Easy test there is to run it with the rad cap off and look for bubbles in the coolant, or use a sniff tester.

[welshpug]

sweet smell would be coolant, eyes burny smoke would be unburnt diesel.

[Toms306]

Well if it's diesel smoke there's definitely problem in a TU...

[lolsteve]

Dam tom beat me to it.
Older petrol engines can be a bit steamy on a cold morning , keep an eye on your expansion tank. If the level isnt dropping then HG would be out the window

[welshpug]

oh yeah, haha.

[Adam CD P1]

Yeah I figured it's not too bad with a bit of white smoke but there's a tonne of it along with the sweet smell so I was just wondering could it be a sign of something ? The car has hardly been driven before. It has 51,000 miles and the tb was done along with it's last service at 31,000 miles so i doubt the head gasket has been done since 1996 lol

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Thermostat sounds fine if it's sitting at 90.

Sure it's not just a rich petrol smell with a bit of condensation as well?  The TU's do tend to blow quite a bit of white steam when cold.

Other alternative is the headgasket but I doubt it's that if it's fine when warmed up.  Easy test there is to run it with the rad cap off and look for bubbles in the coolant, or use a sniff tester.

I'll give that a shot this evening thanks dude ? It'll be cold now when I get back is that the best time to try ?