The dreaded White Smoke
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The dreaded White Smoke
So I have had my car(1994 SSei with 130k) in storage for the winter, and decided the other day to start it up and make sure the battery still has a charge. Lo and behold, the battery won't crank it over all the way, so I dig out Ole faithful, my battery charger. After a few minutes of charging, it turns over just fine, and starts just as it always has. BUT, when I went around to the front of the car to remove the cables from the battery, I saw white smoke coming from the engine. So I opened the door to the car to shut it off (and i'm not sure if this is related, because my climate control has the 3 lines of death, and is always on) but the inside of the car had some of the white smoke in it too. So i shut it off because i had to go to work, and that is where I left it. I know I havent given enough info, like oil conditon, coolant level, etc, but i had to leave in a hurry. What i DO know is that the check engine light never turned on, nor did the car overheat. Is this the classic white smoke of a blown head gasket?
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What did the oil smell like? Was it oil, sweet, electrical? If I had to guess I would say you had oil leak either in to the cylinder, bad valve seal, or on the manifolds.
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it definetly wasnt electrical. I wish i knew whether it was a coolant smell or oil smell, but I cant tell the difference. Does oil give off a white smoke?
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Oil will be a bit more blue. Coolant will have a some what sweet smell. Was it coming out of the tail pipe or all from under the hood? It'* sounding like you had some coolant pool up on the top of the engine.
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The exhaust was fine, just as normal. All of the smoke was coming from under the hood, and it wasn't to my knowledge blue tinted. Something i forgot to mention earlier: before i got out the battery charger, i tried starting it and pumping the gas, because it would almost turn over, but not have enough juice to fire up. Now i know that because it'* fuel injected, chances are that when i pumped the gas, it did nothing at all. right?
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It will take several hours, or a good part of the day. But very doable. here is a write up about it.
https://www.gmforum.com/t278911/
https://www.gmforum.com/t278911/