Blue Smoke in Gasoline Engine Generator

When water pump gasoline generator working, we sometimes can see blue smoke from the gasoline engine, what causes it?

The blue smoke is actually caused by the burning oil in engine.

For a four stroke engine, the oil and gasoline is completely separated. Although it is still inevitable that a small amount of oil will permeate the combustion chamber (i.e. oil consumption). But if to the exhaust emission blue smoke situation, it must belong to the engine fault category. Let's take a look at the structure of the engine to see which part of the engine is faulty.

There are three rings at the head of the piston, and the upper two are gas rings to ensure the air tightness of cylinder and piston. The next one is the oil ring, which is used to scrape off the oil adsorbed on the cylinder wall. The gas ring is simply a circle, but not a whole circle, with a very small gap. One is to facilitate the installation; the other is to reserve the space for thermal expansion. It's like a railway track. It's all sewn. The openings of the two gas rings on the piston are arranged diagonally, so as to reduce the oil flushing phenomenon. However, after a long period of wear, the opening will gradually become larger, at this time, the oil will seep out of the two rings, resulting in oil channeling.

So generally speaking, the reason for oil channeling is that the engine has reached a certain age, or that the gas ring has reached its service life. Therefore, the main cause of oil channeling is the excessive wear and aging of the gas ring at the piston head.

The above mentioned is the common cause of blue smoke, which generally appears on the old engine with a relatively long use time. If it is a new engine that will emit blue smoke, is this also a gas ring aging leading to oil channeling?

Generally, this possibility is very small, unless there is a problem during installation (or the engine has not been oiled before and turned around, resulting in piston ring wear). Generally speaking, the new engine's gas ring is not easy to have problems. It is possible that too much oil is added, which causes the oil to seep into the combustion chamber from the valve tension spring, thus causing the oil to burn.

Blue smoke (burning engine oil) from four stroke engine will cause carbon deposit in fuel injection nozzle and cylinder. If the engine oil is burned due to the aging of the gas ring, the fuel consumption of the engine will be too fast. If the suction of the engine oil is not checked, leading to severe oil shortage, the engine cylinder will be pulled and the engine will be scrapped. So if your engine exhaust is blue smoke, never be careless!

Therefore, if you see blue smoke coming from the engine, you must deal with it in time. First, check whether the oil is added too much. If the amount of oil is suitable but still causing burning oil, it is necessary to replace the engine piston ring or piston assembly.

Starlight power company is a manufacturer of diesel generator set with more than 43 years experience. Power range of diesel genset is from 25kVA to 3125kVA, covering many brands. If you need to purchase, contact us sherly@dieselgeneratortech.com.