smokey

[quack]

im thinking the turbo might be at the end of its life at the moment but wanted to make sure its that and nothing else.

it smokes blue when it cold i.e when i get up at 7am for work and then goes away when it warms up, but it can smoke quite a bit at first.

theres 185,000km on the clock its 1990 2.8 and running 14psi with topmount cooler.

it seems to run very well and boosting normal but the turbo has a bit of a wistling noise.

ive taken off the intake pipeing off the turbo and theres very little/no play in the shaft, i would think its a normal amount of play

my oil pressure light takes a few secounds of turn off when turned on but seems to be normal for other mu owners...

could it just need a good oil change?

at the end of the day ive got machanical insurance so shouldnt cost more than $100 just like to get an idea on the problem.

any ideas??

[geeves]

That doesnt sound like a turbo problem. It doesnt even sound like an anything problem although a dose of injector cleaner might reduce the smoke when cold.
Mornings in Nelson will still be cold enough to make it smoke when cold but not cold enough for the cold start system to work. My 2.8 is like this in Wellington and doesnt burn a drop of oil. Older turbos can whine a little due to the impellor passing fine surface cracks in the housing at very high speed The only way to fix this is a new turbo as rekitting wont do it but unless its very loud its not worth worrying about. Remember to change your oil every 5000km and filter at least every 10000. A fuel and air filter every 10000 wouldnt hurt as well even though the book says 15000 for air and 20000 fo fuel
What is your oil and fuel consumption like? Oil shouldnt need topping up more than once between changes and you should be getting 600+kms from a tankfull in Nelson traffic and up to 800 on the open road. Unless your figures are much worse than this theres nothing to be fixed

[quack]

oh yeah sounds bout right geeves, we would get that kinda kms from a tank especialy when i take it easy, and dont notice an oil consumption

its about due for the oil change as with the fuel fillter.

ive been in many turbo cars and also own a nissan tarrano turbo, the nissans turbo is almost silent but other cars ive been in have a turbo spool simmiler to the mu.

just seems strange because the first 3mins of driving theres is quite a bit of smoke. the cold start thing your talking bout is that the button with the moter and glow plug pic on it? cos if so then its able to be switched on most mornings still although i dont think it does anything/ or i can notice anything.

thanks for that and ill get around to that oil change

[geeves]

Cold start is very crude on the 2.8 but as its direct injection it doesnt realy need it. normaly at temps above 5C the glow plug light will light for about 5 seconds then you can start the car. Operating the cold start switch has no effect and if your like me you never wait for the glow plug light to go out anyway but it is a good idea as glow plugs take 90 amps which is a big load when added to cranking current.
Below 5C the glow plugs will glow for up to 30 sec and the injector timing is advanced slightly. The temp is taken from the thermostat housing so it measures the engine temp.This is enough to alow the engine to start normaly and also stops it smoking but if you put any load at all on the engine you get a fantastic diesel knock untill it warms a little. Operating the fast warm up switch closes a baffle in the exhaust forceing more heat to stay in the engine

[muvit madness]

hi quack
your symptoms are exactly described as what my mu does but agree with what alan says doesn't sound like you have anything to worry about. As i haven't had any probs with my truck (touch wood) although mines only used as a weekend warriors 4b notching up around 10k a year.
regards
muvit

[beau]

there's no problem, i have four inch intake piping onto a k&n filter and the rodeo sounds like its getting ready to take off... nissan used garrett on alot of there models and dont make alot of noise anyway (impella design) so with a intake pipe on it from the airbox you wont hear much at all...
that whistling noise you here coming from your turbo's is the same as the fan on your pc, the same as the electric fans on air con units, it's literally a mini sonic boom, the higher the rpm of the blades cutting through air the higher the frequency. to the human ear you pc's fan sounds like a low hush, the air con unit a humm a turbo charger a whistle and so on