6.4 White smoke and lots of blowby

[Fly By Night]

A buddys 6.4 has been smoking on and off the last month. Cold starts always seem to be fine, but after sitting warm for 10+ minutes it will start and blow a white cloud of smoke at start up. When driving around it seems a little doggy off the line but overall runs normally, if you hammer it will either smoke black or a little bit grey. While driving around it will randomly smoke white, either driving or at idle. There is a code for #8 injector contribution or something along those lines, I don't recall exactly. It was backed in to a lake to pull a boat and started smoking bad so he backed the exhaust in the water and it quickly had a rainbow slick from all of the oil making its way into the water.

I am thinking the #8 injector is starting to go out, but
At idle I pulled the oil fill cap off of it and there was so much blowby it shoots a vapor stream clear up to the hood.

I have been told if a 6.4 burns a hole in a piston there is a miss and they are down on power, this truck has neither but I have no other way to explain the blowby, what can I check?

 

[Jbenso127]

How many miles and when was it deleted?

 

[Fly By Night]

How many miles and when was it deleted?

148,000 and around 130,000 BTW Spartin tunes

 

[webb06]

Sounds like #8 piston is cracked. You can check the compression pretty easily on it.

 

[Fly By Night]

Sounds like #8 piston is cracked. You can check the compression pretty easily on it.

Pull the VC, a glow plug and go?

 

[jdgleason]

No need to pull vc.

 

[webb06]

^what jd said. Pull the glowplug harness and glowplug. Leave key off and use the starter wire next to intake to spin the engine.

 

[Jbenso127]

I had 2 cracked pistons but not really any excessive smoke... And there was a pretty significant change in the tone of the engine and a slight knock/tick from time to time...

I was thinking a washed cylinder (blowby) and turbos starting to chit the bed (explains the white smoke after its warmed up) from being emissions equipped for that many miles... But I could be way out in left field... Just an idea, because I have had the same scenario happen to me, so don't flame me lol.

 

[sctreeguy]

I was pushing coolant out the degas bottle on sustained uphill pulls only and had what I now think was excessive blowby.truck is fully deleted updated hoses and thermostats and mishimoto radiator.even tried 3 new caps.no smoke at all no noises never ran hot ran perfect except pushing coolant.pulled the heads to do studs and gaskets SURPRISE cracked piston.I really think I got lucky and caught it before it grenaded the engine.

 

[groove]

Yup, my rig was similar, no driving issues for the most part, lots of power but crazy blow by. Did a 800km drive and lost 7 litres of oil and started smoking bad. #2 piston is toast.
Good time for upgrades now