Xantia - Oil in intercooler piping

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blueboy2001
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Xantia - Oil in intercooler piping

Post by blueboy2001 »

Mate of mine brought his Xantia to me as he said it was leaking a bit of diesel from one of the leak off pipes.
I've had a look at it and the leak is definitely not diesel, its engine oil and is coming from the intercooler pipe rubber. I've taken the pipe off and there is a pretty significant amount of oil in there, not just the film you normally find. Additionally, there is oil in the boost compensator tube as its leaking out at the join with the diesel pump.
Strange thing is in 5800 miles its not really used any discernable amount of oil, certainly its not gone below half way between min and max. I followed him for a few miles as well and its not kicking out blue smoke as far as I can see, just a bit of diesel dust.
Im thinking there must be an oil seal leaking in the turbo, am I right? It drives ok and the turbo is certainly working but I can only see it getting worse.
Any thoughts? Hopefully I'm thinking the worst and it will be something minor I've overlooked.
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AndersDK
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Post by AndersDK »

Hi BlueBoy -
Usually the turbo fails on the hot side - giving white oil smoke - and a fat greasy spot behind the exhaust. At the same time the exhaust pipe will be very greasy.
Mat Bounting has had this unhappy experience on his Xantia.
If the turbo fails on the cold side - the engine would soon start to exhibit run-away problems - as the engine oil is simply combusted once the engine is warm.
Not trying to be over-positive - I still suspect the problem to be of more "normal" character - like problems in the sump/fume hoses. Could even be the engine running a bit on the hot side due to cooling problems - thus emitting more oil fumes from the sump.
oilyspanner
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Post by oilyspanner »

I thought mine was on the way out when I found that too, turns out that its more of a characteristic than a fault (provided theres no excessive oil consumption or smoking)
Stewart
blueboy2001
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Post by blueboy2001 »

Thanks for the advice lads. I've spoken to him and he's told me last time he changed the oil he used Mobil1 for diesels as he got it cheap. This stuff is very thin, and I'm just wondering if the thin oil is finding its way out of somewhere it shouldn't.
I've advised him to get some Total Quartz 15w-40 from GSF as reccomended in the manual, give it an oil change and clean the air pipes out and see if they become oily again.
NiSk
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Post by NiSk »

My XM TD12 has been looking like that for the last 300 000 km! I just include cleaning out the induction pipe in the routine for oil filter changing - therfore it gets done every 10 000 km. So far, so good (the engines done over 500 000 km in its 10 years).
I have heard from a tame mechanic that a blown oil seal on the turbo cold side will result in runaway - he experienced it while servicing one of the town's taxis. The beast just would not stop - he ended up unscrewing the induction pipe to exhaust the oil.
After that story, I'm VERY careful about changing oil and filter regularly!
//NiSk
louis1
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Post by louis1 »

Excuse my ignerance but what is hotside and coldside on the turbo
mbunting
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Post by mbunting »

Hotside: the exhaust circuit used to power the turbo.
Coldside: the intake, the bit that the turbo compresses to put into the engine via all the piping.
BonceChops
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Post by BonceChops »

I have experianced 'run away' with an old Pug 305 1.9 XUD. At 80mph on the motorway the engine note changed and I could not see the cars behind for the thick smoke. I dipped the clutch intending to coast onto the hard shoulder but the engine revved amazingly. I let the clutch out again and got onto the hard shoulder. I turned the key off and it kept running so I had to stall it to stop it.
The fault turned out to be interesting. The cam box was filling up with oil, because of worn cam bearings, and overflowing down the breather pipe into the air filter.
It melted a hole through a piston and melted the ends off all the glowplugs.
Neil
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