White smoke

[stoney2677]

I had some white smoke coming from exhaust. Also low on coolant. I'd like to narrow it down to what it might be. Is there a test that will say head gasket or cracked head? Or will a test confirm only that it could be both? Car seems to idle ok but hasn't been drivin in its current state.

[CrAsH]

Is it a lot/constant white smoke, or only at start up? All you can really do is compression Test each cylinder, look at you oil make sure it doesn't have coolant in it. If it passes those you can pressure test the coolant system See if it holds, or if it's leaking somewhere else.

[6spdg37s]

^^ pretty much what crash said... prob mileage and if u overheated it or anything recently would help too

[stoney2677]

The car sat for the winter with just a charger on it. Had the carb off getting ready to swap to efi. There is a spot underneath which looked like just oil, maybe a 6" circle. Upon startup car got to 230, shut it down, and started looking. Coolant was down to half and there is coolant by the drain plug which I didn't notice before. Oil pressure was good, didn't run long enough to see if the white smoke would go away. F*** me.

[stoney2677]

Originally Posted by 6spdg37s

^^ pretty much what crash said... prob mileage and if u overheated it or anything recently would help too

It is a 40 year old block but the motor was rebuilt less than 10 years ago. The heads are also old but rebuilt 3-4 years ago with new gaskets. Car has not overheated since then, was barely drivin.

[CrAsH]

230 is pretty hot, Like I recomended before, I'd run pressure test on the coolant system, and compression test on your cylinders, as well as a looking at your oil to make sure nothing is mixing. A lot of cars smoke on start up, but don't have anything to worry about. I hope it's an external leak.

[stoney2677]

Yeah it's been up to 230 afew times before when I had a fan issue. Nothing happened then but I could've gotten lucky. That was years ago and no issue til now. The heads are old and could've cracked. The motors old and I'm not gonna put anymore into it. Could've gotten a 600hp crate motor with the money I've put in it over the years.

[CrAsH]

That's understandable, I would just check and make sure it's not something easy first.

[stoney2677]

I don't know, everything seems to be fine. Changed the oil, no sign of coolant. Car drives good.