Smoke screen ahead

[Subzilla]

Traveling home on the local expressway, I see a pure black, intense screen of smoke coming from a vehicle about 20 cars ahead of me as we climb every hill. Looked like the local tire dump was on fire. Cars were actually hitting their brakes as they could not see the road ahead. Coasting down the hill, the smoke ceases. I thought I'll speed up to see if it's a Ford or Dodge. As I near the smoker, I see a stake bed truck pulling a trailer with a Bobcat but still can't make out the brand of truck. I finally get next to him and see a late 90's model Chevy. I'm disappointed. Is there an obvious cause of such a cloud? Shot turbo, bad IP,...

[JohnC]

Originally posted by Subzilla:
I'm disappointed. Is there an obvious cause of such a cloud? Shot turbo, bad IP,... Bad wastegate control circuit.

[rjschoolcraft]

Yep!

[moondoggie]

Good Day!

"Is there an obvious cause of such a cloud?" Sorry, boys, wrong answer. The correct answer is, this fella isn't a Diesel Page member. ;) If he was, not only would there be no smoke, but there's better than even odds that you wouldn't have been able to catch up to him, because he might be making more power thanks to More Power & the rest of us.

Blessings!

[Barry Nave]

How fast was he going with this type of load?
Once pulled my 30ft TT doing 65mph and the ses came on,had lost all my boost.Smoked like your talking, yet droped my speed very quickly to 55 then I let up,got back into the power and the boost came back. Long story short,back when GM did a R&R long block, the nut at the shop had split the rubber connector on the waste gate can.
Would'nt hold boost.So I think? After replacing that pcs. the boost would hold.

[chickenhunterbob]

Oh my,

If I had a dollar for every time I saw a 6.5 chugging black smoke for no apparent reason, and seemingly unnoticed by the operator, I may not be rich, but would be a lot better off.

Sometimes I want to pull them over and have a chat, about vacuum systems, wastegate solenoids, and other such things that hanging around here has educated me in, but haven't yet.

[moondoggie]

Good Day!

"If I had a dollar for every time I saw a 6.5 chugging black smoke for no apparent reason, and seemingly unnoticed by the operator..." Don't EGT's go way up when under load with inadequate air? Your observation may explain at least some of the 6.5's earned or unearned reputation for unreliability - clouds of black smoke should be fixed. ;)

Blessings!

[tehillah1]

What a great site this is! I'm a newbie here, and just became the proud owner of a 1994 CK2500 in December. I've been slowly perusing the volumes of info here, and trying to figure out what questions to ask first...well it's been a few days since I was here and lo and behold this whole topic was my next inquiry of the experienced here since I have noticed some smoke under load coming up the hill from town (Denver 5280 ft to home 8000 ft)...I thought it might be something to do with the turbo operation but wasn't sure where to start troubleshooting. Now I know what to search for here...I'll be checking my vacuum systems, waste gate operations and solenoid and staying tuned in here to see what else I need to learn...thanks for sharing the info all y'all.

[Barry Nave]

What a great site this is!

You got that right :D Back when I first joined I knew nothing about the 6.2-6.5 diesel. I found my truck,needed a newer work truck and wanted it to be a diesel. If it was'nt for this site I would of gotten rid of my truck long time ago.
Thanks to MP and all of the members I have been able to up grade power and make the truck very dependable. Thanks to all of the members also,I can't keep my hands off of it even though nothings wrong :D Cut my finger yesterday,bleed black :confused: tongue.gif

[DA BIG ONE]

Originally posted by Bnave95:
What a great site this is!

Cut my finger yesterday,bleed black :confused: tongue.gif Quick, back to area 51 for overhaul.

[Subzilla]

He was going about 55 (the speed limit), and he may have been slowing up hills but he was pulling a normal size Bobcat skid steer loader. But, again, the black smoke was unreal! My first thought was: "Does he even have a clue how far past 1200 degrees his EGT's are exceeding?" When I push my old 6.2 to roll out the black smoke, the EGT's climb quickly, but my black puffs are nothing compared to what this truck was putting out.

Just trying to pick up some 6.5 knowledge for when the day comes to modernize one of the vehicles. I concur with the other comments on the valuable info I've learned here. I can't even begin to count the hours, dollars and frustration I've saved over the last 9 years by being a TDP member!

[Cowracer]

Well, when he cracks a piston, the smoke with take on a bluish tint. And when the head gaskets let go, it will have some white mixed in.

Pretty!

Tim

[autocrosser]

Everyone seems to overlook the posibility of a plugged cat converter. If the waste gate is functioning ok the next and quickest thing to look at is the converter. I've posted this comment a number of times due to folks blastiing out black smoke and having a loss of power and elevated coolant temp.finding them plugged at the inlet.

[TJ]

There are people still using their soot collectors??? :eek:

[chickenhunterbob]

I suspect people (at least a few) still use the catalitic converter.

But the (first, if is suspected as a problem) remedy for a plugged cat from the GM manual it to floor it a few times to the allowable speed limit, to clear the accumulated crud.

[autocrosser]

That remidy has never worked on the ones I've seen. The screen at the inlet were so plugged it wouldn't self clean. That might work for one the is caught early.

[Barry Nave]

The screen at the inlet were so plugged it-

The trick has been to remove Cat. Debug inters,install pipe in Cat. Look as though Cat is still installed.