White Smoke At Start Up? 1972 Chevelle 350?

Question

My friends and I replaced the head gaskets and had the heads checked for cracks. They are fine.

Before, we noticed coolant in oil, a lot of white smoke, and loss of coolant. With that being said, the exhaust manifolds were wet w/ water/antifreeze. So we replaced all that. Then drained the old oil, filled it up with new oil and a product to reduce blowby and increase compression. The car has been sitting for a couple of years so the people at my local parts store said it will be good to include. After doing that, we filled it up with new coolant. The car has started about 15 times plus since then. Now, seeing as how the exhaust manifold was wet, would that still cause white smoke? It is definitely not as bad as it was before all the replacements. It just has some smoke at start up and then it goes away. THE COOLANT LEVEL IS THE SAME - NO LOSS. Still in a good position is the radiator. When the car is being started, there are no bubbles in radiator and the oil looks good. But it still smokes white.

Also, the oil level is a little higher than usual. That is because of the addictive we added to help compression and we may have overfilled it a lil' bit. Would that oil (too much) cause white smoke as well?

We are replacing the timing chain on it here pretty soon so we are going to drain oil, refill with the right amount and same with coolant.

So yeah... white smoke (not much - but noticable), no coolant loss, oil looks fine, new head gaskets, etc... Could the too much oil contribute? Or is it just the water in the exhaust manifold that was there from before? Or what can you think of? And finally, I took out a couple of plugs... and they look great! No coolant, oil, gas or anything. They look fine. Also, the car is not overheating, and the freeze plugs are good still so I doubt the block is cracked. There is a little squealing when starting but the belts on there are really old so I take it that contributes to that. We're gunna be giving it a tune-up here soon but just wanna be sure that there are no serious problems. Thanks

And finally, the head gaskets were installed correctly and the heads were torqued correctly with correct sequence as was the intake manifold and all that.

Answer 1

My chevy smokes a little whiteish blue when i first fire it up and it is actually oil that has leaked down past the valve seals becuase the valve guides are worn at almost 200,000 miles...did you have the heads redone or simply checked...you may be having the same problem my 4.3 does

Answer 2

I would say that its what they call cold start and that means that the valve seals are bad and you need a valve job

Answer 3

I think the motor is probably okay. The exhaust manifolds have carbon (soot) in them, and if this got soaked with water, it will release steam for a while. If you drive the car for 30 minutes or so (not just run the engine), the water should cook out.

But it is okay for a car to release a little steam when first started up, if the engine is cold. This is common, especially here in the humid South. I suspect the original water leak was the intake manifold, but if the car has been sitting for a couple of years, water could have gotten into the engine several ways, like through the intake gasket, through the distributor hole, etc.

You know, you are doing lots of work on this engine. Why not just pick up a ring-and-gasket set, plus bearings and valve stem seals. Pull the motor, take it apart, clean it out really good, and check it for cracks. Then put it back together with new rings, bearings, seals, and timing chain. This won't cost a whole lot, and the newly rebuilt engine should give you 50k-100k miles of trouble-free service. Think about it.

Answer 4

you might still have some anti-freeze laying in the exhaust and muffler.

Answer 5

stop smokin in the car