Discussion
While on the way to Trinity tonight I noticed a burning smell and a cloud of white smoke from my exhaust!
Pulled over and call Tony, the AA, and Mike Bamford.
No clear idea what the problem is. AA checked the fluids and they were all ok (so I'm not a total numpty).
Car is on the the way to Bamford Rose. Might possibly be the fuel breather purge valve, but the symptoms aren't quite right.
Fingers crossed its nothing too nasty
Pulled over and call Tony, the AA, and Mike Bamford.
No clear idea what the problem is. AA checked the fluids and they were all ok (so I'm not a total numpty).
Car is on the the way to Bamford Rose. Might possibly be the fuel breather purge valve, but the symptoms aren't quite right.
Fingers crossed its nothing too nasty
Had an update from Mike, and now I'm at a real keyboard can give a few more details.
First of all there was a lot of smoke, and it was more from one exhaust pipe than the other. Didn't get a photo / video of it sadly.
Incase it's helpful to anyone that finds this thread in the future, here's what Mike said:
Mike was kind enough to take deliver of my car at 11:30 pm, when the AA got it to BR, and had sent me the update by 8 this morning! Typical of BR, going above and beyond
First of all there was a lot of smoke, and it was more from one exhaust pipe than the other. Didn't get a photo / video of it sadly.
Incase it's helpful to anyone that finds this thread in the future, here's what Mike said:
SMS from Mike said:
Problem was either going to be smoke related to fuel, oil or water. Seems to be oil related. The inlet manifold is completely drenched in oil. Oil appears to be coming from dry sump tank breather circuit. Reason is either failure of valve system (likely, the round plastic valve body casing in the picture) or engine related issue where breather gas is forced past piston rings causing oil to come out of breather circuit (unlikely, I hope because the engine runs sweet enough considering issue). The smoke is caused because the inlet manifold is so full of oil, oil is forming a massive part of fuel air mixture, the poor combustion manifests itself as white smoke, if better combustion (due to less oil in mixture) took place the smoke would be blue. However is white here because its a case of complete saturation of oil in mixture. Requires removal of inlet manifold and clean, remove and examine oil breather circuit to confirm suspicion. I have seen this mode of failure before.
There's some fairly gory photos of the intake too, but I think it's beyond my phone/forum skills to upload them from an SMS!Mike was kind enough to take deliver of my car at 11:30 pm, when the AA got it to BR, and had sent me the update by 8 this morning! Typical of BR, going above and beyond
Tony V12V said:
FrogInLondon said:
It is not allowed to abandon an AM driver on the side of the road!
Only in French petrol stations 
Yes, I forgot to thanks Tony! Your reassurance, and list of things to look for was really helpful, thanks Tony.
It's quite scary to see clouds of white smoke and burning smells coming from the back of your P&J!
I do wish the Aston had better sensors, with readouts in the cabin, coolant level and oil level would be a good start! Not that it would have helped in this case, but I would have been more sure I hadn't just done something dumb
peterr96 said:
Just wondering... what's the danger of the cats (not the four legged variety) being contaminated?
Mike reckons it's unlikely, but possible. I have the 200 cell ones, they're a bit less twiddly inside, with less precious metals, so harder to poison.
The engine insides are completely fine, which was the main thing I was worried about. Cats are (relatively) cheap to replace.
So, incase anyone else gets this, pull over quick
not that you'd really need telling that!
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