The last few nights,I have noticed that one of our trucks has a mis. It blows white smoke,smoke rings,and you can hear the mis. Well,night before last,in the comments part on our pre-trip sheets,I wrote down that the motor is missing. At the warehouse,by the offices,there are 2 plastic boxes where we put our pre-trip sheets. One is for the white copy,and the other is for the pink copy,which is for the shop. Sometimes,it takes a day or two for the shop to pick up their copy of the pre-trip sheets. Johnny,the"head mechanic",he's good,but he has a degree in southern engineering. :? Well,Johnny called me this morning,and he told me that he was going through the pre-trip sheets,and he had a question for me. He asked me about the motor missing. I told him what was happening(pretty much the same as I wrote here). He asked me if I left it at the warehouse.(we take in the trucks that are lowest on fuel,and round trip them)I told him that I brought it back home,and it went on a route. He said,"Well,who took it?" I said,Jason did."(the route driver that's assigned to that truck) He laughed,and he said,"No,the motor,who took the motor? It says on your pre-trip that the motor is missing." :? Just to make his day,because he is in love with Cummins. I said,"Well,I took it to the CAT dealer,and they took out that junky come apart,and they are gonna put in a kitty cat. :P He said,"Yeah,ok. HA HA." He then told me to bring it in tonight,and leave it at the shop. So...I guess,I need to be more specific when I fill out my pre-trip. :shock:

 

Well I don't blame him. Missing is a northern thing. Down there in texas, if an engine is only running on 5 cylinders, it's "skipping"- NOT missing! Am I right? Lets tighten up our nomenclature!

Here's a good example of the difference between missing and skipping- I used to run linehaul for Plymouth Rock Transportation (Reading, PA domicile). We had a Mack that was "skipping", so it just sat parked against the fence for about a month. Finally, the decision was made to send it to the shop in Boston for repairs, and it fell to me to run it over to our break bulk in Jersey City one night, and a boston man would run it the rest of the way.

Twenty minutes out of Reading it starts pouring rain, and guess what, no wipers. Now I have a problem: If I call in and tell them the wipers aren't working, they'd rightly ask "Didn't you check them before you left?". Of course I hadn't. So I pulled into the Hess Station at Moselem Springs, thinking I'd wiggle the wiring connector at the wiper motor and with luck that's the problem, or worst case, I'd make a roadcall and lie, saying "Well, they WERE working in Reading". Lucky for me I didn't call first, because when I popped the hood to wiggle the wires, I found there WAS no wiper motor! That %$#&^ "Marty, our smiling, happy mechanic robbed it off when the truck was sitting by the fence!

So you see, the engine was "skipping", the wiper motor was "missing".

 

"missing" is derived from "misfire", when an engine doesn't fire during a power stroke

 

Turbo will blow white smoke when going or gone and if it's not cold Down Yonder :P

 

But down south I've often heard it called skipping, which also makes perfect sense.

 

when the turbo gives up, the engine does not get enough air... incomplete combustion... cold chamber... white smoke

when it blows a shaft seal, you get lots of black/blue stuff out of the stack... sometimes in liquid form =)

oh, how many cabs and windshields i've cleaned up after a garrett turbo had self-destructed =(

 

White smoke and you can hear the miss sounds like an injector to me especially if it's a Cummins.

You get white smoke because raw fuel is still injected into the cylinder and not burnt.

The further you drive it the worse the smoke will get.
It's not the best advice to drive it with a bad injector but a short distance won't hurt it.
Just keep your foot out of it.
You'll probably hear it knocking.

It could be a turbo like Yoopr says but you don't want to go anywhere with it if it's a turbo gone.

You can do a poor man's check on the injector by checking the cylinder temp by the injector nozzle.

The cold(er) one is the bad one.