bandit and n_public are correct. what they are telling is what I'd do to check it out. seals @ start up cause blue smoke, and quits after a while of running, and water would drop down in radiator if leaking out the tail pipe. another thing is pull cap off and start engine, make sure water in radiator is not blowing out when you rev engine. means compression is getting into the radiator if it does and head would have to come off. usually engine heats up if it did do this. I had a chev car that blew smoke all over when I was driving. it needed new rings figured just drive it. as long as it had oil in it, it kept going. use the heaviest oil posible if burning oil. a straight weight oil not a muti visc oil like 5 or 10w what ever.. just as heavy as possible like a 40 or 50 wt.
no ! white smoke would be a head or intake gasket leaking ! the blue you see is oil burning ! sounds like the valve seals are shot ! if you had a head or intake gasket leaking then your antifreeze would keep going low and white smoke would be coming out the tailpipe instead of blue ! also black smoke would be it,s burning too rich ! blue is oil burning, black is too much gas burning and white is antifreeze !
If you have blue smoke and it stops after a short while,your valve stem seals are probably bad. Black smoke indicates a rich fuel/air mixture.Do a compression test.Then squirt a teaspoon of 50 weight oil at the highest point of your cylinders.Redo the test to see if the oil has somewhat sealed the cylinder.If you get a much better pressure reading your rings are bad.
it sounds like the head is going, check your oil for white milky residue and you water for residue or a light amount of oil, if the head is going and you want a cheap fix you could try something like k-seal
White smoke(steam) indicates head issues, blue smoke is burning oil. Either way, hope you got it for a song, 'cause this engine's TIRED. Check oil for coolant (milky looking), coolant for oil in radiator. Do a compression test and a combustion gas test to eliminate or pin-point head or head gasket issues.
that gives you a perfect reason for doing the small block v/8 engine swap. look at your oil fill cap for a milky residue.
Hello I recently bought a used truck and the guy I bought it from says that it used a little oil which i understood because it's an older engine but I was having my mechanic look at it and he spooked me a little he noticed smoke from the exhaust pipe was a very light color when I started the truck there was quite a bit but after a few seconds to a minute it quit and would sometimes blow blue to black smoke my friend said he thought that it meant the head gasket was bad but after start up the smoke is either dark grey or blue and black I do not know if it is loosing coolant at the moment opinions on whether you think it's the head gasket would be appreciated
