Im by far no expert on this but Ive heard over the years that white smoke "might" indicate a leaking head gasket and water/antifreeze is sneeking into the combustion chamber on that side...it burns white... have compression test and cylinder leak down test done ASAP... and I wouldnt drive it till you figure it out... what about level in the radiator? If its way down, that another hint of a leak.

 

Antifreeze is leaking into cylinder. Could be as simple as a intake manifold gasket or head gasket.

Jeff G.

 

Thanks for the info guys. I have had some oil leaking at the back of the engine along the intake gasket so maybe it needs replacing. I haven't performed a compression test, but could. It starts and drives fine. Odd thing, about a week ago I was driving it home from work and all of the sudden I look in the rear view mirror and it looks like one of those stunt planes that pushes out the smoke. I even had smoke coming in my vents into the car. I shut it off and pulled over and couldn't find anything other than some tranny fluid around my dipstick. Now it could be possible the dipstick wasn't on tight and some fluid came out and then leaked onto the header causing all the smoke, but it was weird. It was running fine, the only reason I noticed it was I happened to look in the rear view. I looked for leaking fluid under the car and nothing. I started it up and it was fine. Since then, nothing. Now this new thing started up this weekend. Is the ticking related?

 

Some simple things to check PCV valve sticking open depending on what side its on and if you even have one. Pull the plugs on the smoking bank you should be able to tell a cylinder with excessive oil burn normally gummed up. Even tell if a bit of color difference if leak water in that cylinder.

 

PCV is on the drivers side. I just changed the setup this spring when I bought new valve covers. I put what I believe is the way it should be -oil fill and pcv on drivers and return vent from passenger to base of air cleaner. I do not have the passenger side hooked up yet, need to get some hose flexible enough to make the bends I need. I'll pull the plugs and see what I find.

 

Matt you can also run down to Auto Zone and they have the tester you use to see if you have combustion gases in your coolant. It's just like a tube that goes in the radiator filler neck that you pour the test fluid in, then pump air into it from the cooling system and it'll change color if gases are present which indicates a head gasket or other problem. The tool is free to rent and you just have to buy the fluid. This is a good double check because as mentioned it is possible for an intake gasket to leak over into a port. It would suck to pull the head if it were really something else.

 

No one brought this up, yet, how is your exhaust run, may make a big diffrence,