Sooty Sortrak

Forum: 

My 89 Sportrak leaves a nice pile of black soot from the end of the exhaust when I start it from cold. It's getting a bit embarrasing as there are now little soot piles all round where I park.
Is this something easy to sort? Or am is my little Daihatsu money-pit going to require more money throwing at it? Scratch one-s head

Air filter

Soot is excessive burned fuel. MPG should be about 28miles/gallon. Start by changing the air filter. Even if it looks clean the pore gets blocked.

Done that...

I replaced the air filter last week. Anything else I should be looking for?

Try this.

1. How many mpg is it recording. Is it wasting fuel?
2. Is the motor a carb or injection.
3. Choke or valve could be sticking. [It could be a burned out valve allowing unburned fuel to escape - problem!]
Get the motor hot. Remove the air filter and slowly pour light motor oil [or REDEX from Halfords and follow the Redex instructions] into the carb whilst the engine is fast running. Tickle the throttle to keep the reves going so the oil gets around the carb. Let it tickle for a minute then rev the engine. Loads of smoke will come from the exhaust. If its a stuck choke or sticky valve the oil often frees the problem. [Redex can be added to the fuel in the tank.]
4. When the smoke clears take it for a fast motorway run ... 70mph. Check the exhaust pipe .. what colour is the deposit inside the pipe.

Will do, But first..

My cars having a tune up tomorrow morning, so I'm going to see what results that has and take it from there.

I'll let you know!

A few answers

Most definitely been wasting fuel. This morning I worked out my recent fuel consumption as a kind of before and after experiment regarding the tune up. It had been doing approx 14 MPG which is shocking. :o
The guys at my local Daihatsu garage found the choke was sticking open (as I suspected) and have sorted that, as well as generally tuning it up. It now drives 110% better than it did and it remains to be seen what happens regarding the fuel consumption, though I'm hoping the change should be significant. Smile

Cheers for the help!