Diesel faults: smoke colour, checks and spares
Daily checks before you turn the key, the first thirty seconds, what blue, black and white smoke each mean, and how a symptom leads to one part.
How the lesson starts
Everything in this course so far has been about one part at a time. This is the routine that touches all of them, and it takes about two minutes.
W · Water. The raw-water strainer, seen through its lid. Weed or plastic in the basket and you deal with it now, not when she is running hot in a channel.
O · Oil. The dipstick, cold and on level trim. Between the marks. And the colour of it: amber is right, milky means water, and a level that has gone up on its own means diesel.
B · Belt. Press it. About right, no cracks, no glaze, no black dust. One belt, three jobs.
B · Bilges. Look under the engine. It should be dry. Water, oil or diesel down there is the first thing that tells you about a leak, and it tells you for free.
L · Levels. The coolant in the header tank — cold — and the gearbox oil. Two levels that are not the engine oil and get forgotten because of it.
What you practise inside
- Six letters, before you turn the key
- The first thirty seconds
- Blue, black, white
- Where the smoke sends you
- From a symptom to a part
- What you carry
- What you do, and when
- Read the symptom
This is a preview. The lesson itself is interactive: you work through it step by step, and every answer is checked as you go.
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