Head gasket gone? Oil pump maybe?

[LuciferM]

On Thursday, driving along from Lyon to Calais. Took a 10-minute break and set off again. As I was re-joining the motorway I got up to 90mph in 4th and all of a sudden there was smoke everywhere, rom under the bonnet and got a fair bit out the back too. Engine stalled. Restarted first time as I was still moving along and just crawled along in neutral til I found a safe place to stop.

The exhaust is something I'd been meaning to get done for a while so I checked that and found that the tailpipe had rusted away from the cat, and whenever I revved the engine slightly the cat was blowing out lots and lots of white smoke, so naturally I presumed it was that.

But now I've spoken to a couple of car savvy people (allegedly), and they both say that white smoke = engine. My water and oil levels were both fine (the water seemed to be sizzling a little, but engine temperature was fine (88 degrees) and oil was what it usually was on hot days on the motorway (110-115), but they seem to think that either the head gasket has gone or possibly the oil pump. The car was still drivable at fairly high speeds after the incident. I drove to Troyes (about a 10-minute drive from where I was) going at 50mph most of the way.

Is there anyone that can offer any advice at all? Does the head gasket sound right? Is the fix likely to be expensive?

[DaKyy]

If it is white smoke it prolly is the head gasket. Does it only come out from the exhaust? Did you look at the water reservoir after the incident? If there was foam or bubbles generated on there it is also an indicator. If there was white smoke also coming out straight from your engine bay it might be something else too. For instance my brothers 440 spitted some oil out from the breather pipe straight to the exhaust but you could smell it straight away something is burning

[LuciferM]

Yes I checked the water level and it was fairly frothy/bubbly. There's a tube next to the engine sticking upwards and that had a bit of smoke coming out of it as well. Beginning to sound very much like head gasket then...

It is a 1.7 Turbo, so could it even be the Turbo that's gone?

Thanks for your post, DaKyy

[ted clutch]

arent the turbos water cooled. could be leaking. oil is usually blue smoke and smells. get a spare radiator cap, glue a tyre valve into the top and pump the cooling system up to about 15psi. if it drops quick you have a leak in hoses, radiator - head gasket. the garage can also put the exhaust probe into the coolant tank and sniff out any c02 = head gasket gone.
given the rev it happened at its most likely. there is also a chemical that changes colour with co2.