Constant white smoke

needlessthing

Registered User
ok today I started getting some white smoke out my exhaust with alittle bit of fluid dripping. I have a radiator issue to start with and I am saving money to get one of mikes rads. I am just curious as to what is causing this. I did alittle reading and Blown HG came up. But I dont think that is the case. There is no lose of power....nore is there a mass amount of smoke at all. It is just a small constant stream of white smoke and some dripping.

Anyone able to help me with this? I just hope it isnt a HG....I dont have the money for an engine rebuild. Or the know how to do it myself.
 
needlessthing said:
ok today I started getting some white smoke out my exhaust with alittle bit of fluid dripping. I have a radiator issue to start with and I am saving money to get one of mikes rads. I am just curious as to what is causing this. I did alittle reading and Blown HG came up. But I dont think that is the case. There is no lose of power....nore is there a mass amount of smoke at all. It is just a small constant stream of white smoke and some dripping.

Anyone able to help me with this? I just hope it isnt a HG....I dont have the money for an engine rebuild. Or the know how to do it myself.
White smoke and dripping water from the tailpipes is the most classic head gasket symptom. Dont drive it again until you know for sure. Do a search for head gaskets here, and you will find alot of info on how to check to see if it is head gaskets. Check and see if the car is loosing water, it is is then I would say your hg's are definniltey gone. Go ahead and drain your oild as well, that way if there is coolant in the crank case you may save your bearings.

Some condensation can and will build up in exhaust systems, but it is typically cleared within a minute or two or starting the car.
 
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I'd be willing to bet also the HG's let go. Sorry for the bad news, drain the oil out of that car before you damage the bearings :(
 
I'd check the oil and see if its getting a little milking HG's can blow many times sometimes they blow very slowly and sometimes they blow right away, so you might have a leaking headgasket at this point.
 
I agree with Unclenick. You are at the beginning stages of HG failure. If you keep driving it, pretty soon it will start missing badly. At that point you will suffer catastrophic damage, as the anti freeze will eat up all your bearings.
Do yourself a favor and stop driving it, drain remaining coolant & oil. If you are capable of doing the job yourself, it will only cost about $500.00.
 
Before you go off the deep-end, has it gotten cooler where you're at recently? Is it damp outside? Could this just be normal water vapour coming out the exhaust?

Does the exhaust smell sweet, like antifreeze? Is the liquid dripping out clear or greenish like antifreeze?

...Definitely check the oil for milkiness. If it looks milky or frothy, shut it down, drain the rest of the coolant, change the oil and filter with cheap stuff, and then after the car is totally cool, start it up and run it at idle for about three minutes. Drop the oil and change the filter again, and do this one more time. This will help flush any glycol away from the bearings in the bottom end. ...Then, as soon as possible, get the HG's changed.

Having the HG's fail is not the end of the world with these cars. Don't get too discouraged if this in fact turns out to be the case for you.

Best regards,

Sean
 
As Sean says, its no the end of the world.

When my went, it was gradual and slowly got worse until it developed a miss. At that point I noticed gurgling in the over flow and thats when I stopped using the car. Fortunately I had no anitfreeze get into the oil as the gasket let go on the #3 cyl to a coolant passage. If I had driven much more it would have hit an oil passage.

Now my car runs like a dream, with a couple of extra horsies cause of the mild porting I did on the intake side.

Frit
 
doing the HG is a good thing. it will give you a chance to take care of some other maintenance stuff that would be a pain/impossible with the car still together.

the heater hoses in the back, the plugs and wires, headers, a magnaport super charger... you know all that general maintenance stuff ;) .
 
Hey guys....I got the car checked out and all is good. I mostly drive my car at night (that is when I work) and it has been pretty cold here in Jersey after the sun goes down the last few nights. Think it was in the 50's lastnight. With the humidity during the day every has a nice thick layer of water on it. Guess I saw white smoke and paniced a bit but it turns out all is good. No white smoke during the day when it is warmer and machanic has give me the A OK. All it cost me was an oil change. I paniced and drained the oil ASAP so coolent wasnt sitting on the barings. Thanks for the imput guys.

I plan on doing a HG change soon anyway but right now I didnt have the cash for it so i would have been hurting. I plan on waiting till I have new blower. New Exhaust+headers. and my radiator from mike comes in.
 
Glad everything is ok.

50 at night, holy crap, I wouldnt have even imagined it being that cold at night this time of year. Then again, in Alabama, if it goes below 85 this time of year it is consider cool.
 
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