White Smoke and Water Out of Exhaust :::ADVICE PLEASE!:::: (1 Viewer)

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Joined
Sep 17, 2014
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Location
Indianapolis
A little back story. Purchased the vehicle and looking back i should have exercised a bit more due dilligence. California LC up until 3 years ago. Only 3 midwest winters. Toyota mechanic did a brief inspection and gave the thumbs up on it for pre-purchase inspection.

167k - last owner replaced radiator
231,800 - i purchased
232,100 - i replaced radiator in Cincinnati as it was leaking (not gushing, but dripping)
232,300 - new leak, took to local shop in Indy and they identified that it was a bad radiator. new radiator is installed, brought home today.

Spoke with mechanic and asked him if he saw anything concerning that would hint the head gasket is going to go sometime soon. He said no. He did note the white smoke and mentioned something about the rings.

I told him how the radiator problems have me paranoid along with reading the MUD forums. He told me to bring back in a week for a block test/head gasket inspection. He said new antifreeze/exhaust need to run for a week before they would want to do an accurate assesment.

Light white smoke upon initial start up. Water/liquid coming out of back tail pipe. My drive way is on a slight hill. No milkshake build up any time since i purchased. No bubbling of the antifreeze overflow. No problems with rough idle or bad MPG. No real loss of power but i don't gas it too hard as i try to maintain good mpg.

Throughout my radiator issues in my brief 2 weeks of ownership, the temp guage never got above half way point.

Thoughts? Advice.

Not sure why i took pics of oil when the radiator and antifreeze was just put in today. don't think it would have time to mix so soon.

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Subscribed - I might have the same issue...
 
Check for bubbles after you drove it for a while to build up pressure.

I had the same issues and eventually determined it was a HG issues as there was bubble after I drove it and no bubble after just idle warm up.

A can of bars would be handy to have either way.


...Misspelled via IH8MUD app
 
Just to clarify, im looking for bubbles in the overflow reservoir while the overflow is capped off with the black hose in the resevoir tank? The air pushing through the overflow hose would then create bubbles inside the overflow tank which has antifreeze in it?
 
Stop guessing and being nervous - Trust me

Go to autzone and rent the Block tester kit item #27145 and also buy the Block tester fluid part #25739.

Perform the test and either wipe the sweat from your forehead and smile, or frown and park the truck and prepare to fix it.
 
The block tester kit doesn't always work, send in an oil sample to Blackstone for analysis.
 
IMHO, a small amount of white smoke and dripping water is nothing to worry about. All of my cars smoke a little and drip water out of the tail pipe at start up. Another reason it will put out white smoke at start up is worn valve seals. My head gasket blew on a 97 LX I purchased from a friend(paid $750 for the truck). When it did, there was a WALL of thick white smoke, the engine started running rough and it threw a #6 misfire. The truck had a number of radiator issues and was run hot more than once by PO. You mention radiator issues, did you run it hot?
 
Just to clarify, im looking for bubbles in the overflow reservoir while the overflow is capped off with the black hose in the resevoir tank? The air pushing through the overflow hose would then create bubbles inside the overflow tank which has antifreeze in it?

You probably won't be able to see anything with the cap on the overflow. Remove it but make sure the end of the tube is still down in the fluid. If there are bubbles you will only see them looking down through the top.
 
Blackstone oil analysis and no more guessing.
 
condensation builds in the muffler and its natural that at times you will have water come out the tail pipe in small quantities, a little white smoke is nothing to worry about in the sense of first start up. If you roll out white smoke like a bug sprayer...and you have the sweet smell of coolant then yea..you have a problem. From what you describe...it does not sound like a head gasket but more like "normal"..
 
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You'll see a lot of these new "white smoke" threads pop up as the temperature drops across the country as we head into fall and winter.

From the pictures, nothing to worry about. Since you just changed the oil, run it for a while and then do an oil analysis for absolute assurance you're good to go. Do the block tester in the interim to make you feel better.
 
Appreciate everyone's input. This s#it will eat away at you if you dont have someone to listen to you. My dog just cocks his head an looks at me funny. The GF pours a large glass of wine and just nods her head. You guys are like therapy.......that i dont have to pay for.

I'm going to give new oil a couple weeks and then send to blackstone for analysis.
 
Appreciate everyone's input. This s#it will eat away at you if you dont have someone to listen to you. My dog just cocks his head an looks at me funny. The GF pours a large glass of wine and just nods her head. You guys are like therapy.......that i dont have to pay for.

I'm going to give new oil a couple weeks and then send to blackstone for analysis.
Wasn't this the vehicle :worms:that the previous owner wanted to buy back... ;)
 
indeed it is.
 
indeed it is.



Sell it back and start over, serious.


If the truck wasn't emitting white smoke before, and now is, then obviously that's not normal. Unless your temperatures have dropped notably in the last few days. Then it is easy to tell because go drive it for 15 minutes and then rev it up in park and see if it still smokes. If it's simply due to condensation it will go away when the vehicle is warmed up.

Also, if you really want to know what's up, make the drive an hour or so, then go run the autozone block test (don't forget the fluid) Don't pay the shop to do this, it's easy and you can return everything including the left over fluid and get 100% of your money back.

That's if you are attached to your truck, otherwise, call the seller and let them know they get their truck back with a brand new radiator! :cheers:
 
Seller no longer is interested as he had to buy something new quickly.

I got home today and the engine was running at normal full temp. No leaks or anything which was good.

I looked in the overflow reservoir though and there were small bubbles. Not huge or big or rapid bubble, but there were bubbles. Kept engine running from commute home to pick up block tester from auto zone. got home, let engine cool down for 3-4 minutes so antifreeze wouldn't spew everywhere. removed radiator cap, let it run for a couple mins (it was already hot from previous commute and 45 mins of engine being on), used the block tester. Pumped my ass off for 15 minutes, no change in color on the blue die. I got all slap happy thinking i was in the clear. then 2 hours later i remembered that there were bubbles in the radiator overflow bottle. decided to test again

took cruiser back out for 15-20 min driver, came back to garage, engine still running, ran test again, pumped and pumped and pumped, no change in color on the blue test dye. pushed throttle manually to 2500 rpm for 2-3 mins. Pumped and pumped, no change in color.

NOTE: brand new block tester rent a tool kit at autozone. not sure if that could be bad or good.

any thoughts?

Keep in mind that the antifreeze and radiator are fresh (fixed 24 hours ago, 30 miles driven since). My oil change was 100 miles ago so i wanted to wait a week or two before i did the blackstone analysis. not sure if id be able to see milkshake build up or oil discoloration so soon after the radiator replacement.
 
It's likely the exhaust hasn't contaminated the the new coolant enough to register on the test. There should be zero bubbles coming up in the reservoir unless the system wasn't properly burped of air when the radiator was refilled. If you have ramps you can pull it up on the ramps or use a curb even with the truck running and the thermostat open see if any large bubbles are released into the radiator. Just an idea.
 
Bubble means bad HG, to confirm do the oil test but you have a small HG leak. Until you are ready for the HG job get a bottle of bars HG fix(40 dollar version) follow the instruction and it should hold for a while, people have been running for years in it. Keep an extra bottle in the 80 for feature HG leaks until you actually do the HG Job.

The bars suppose to harden and fix the HG "permanently", either way you buy some time on your side to research and decide what you want to do.




...Misspelled via IH8MUD app
 

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