driving down the road....then idiot lights turn on...?

[ltdcrwnvic]

well here we go...i was driving down the road and all of a sudden the 'engine' idiot light came on and clouds of white smoke started spooing out. i pull over right away and check the electric fan...its working perfectly...i check the radiator...no leaks, water/anti-freeze is good, a lil dirty but good...oil dipstick marked a half-quart low, topped it off and kept on checking things.

waited til sunday to start tearing it apart. i had a suspicion that it was overheating and that the thermostat was the issue...took off the electric fan, and drained the radiator. in doing so, a liquid/paste, light brown in color and grainy was slowly coming out, u could say it was exactly like mud! so i flushed the hell out of it and inspected the thermostat right above the water pump, behind the gooseneck. sure enough it was sealed shut. took it off and began to clean the surfaces so i can prep it for the gasket(decided not to install the thermostat). while i was there i went ahead and put in new hoses, the ones coming in/out of the water pump.

reassembled everything, inspected both upper and lower radiator hoses(still in good shape), and hooked up the electric fan. filled up the radiator with anti-freeze, fired it up and left her runnin for about 30mins...and no more idiot light. wasnt too convinced, so i hopped on the I-10 and hauled ass for about 20 minutes doing about 80mph....still no idiot light!

now ive been using the car since and no problems whatsoever......thing that concerns me is all the white smoke it was spooing that one day......is it a sign of problems to come? every once in a while when i turn on the car in the mornings theres a bit of white smoke but then it disappears and thats that. at times when i gun it at traffic lights or on the freeway when passing vehicles theres a puff of white smoke.....bad piston? heads wanting to give?

[mrltd]

white "smoke" that goes away quickly is water vapor. The smoke you saw the day it overheated could have been boiling over coolant. It also could have been oil that was boiling and going out the exhaust.

Not running a t-stat is a bad idea. Put one in.

[gadget73]

What he said, and I agree about the thermostat. Flush the system out real good, and run at least 25% antifreeze. It might not get real cold down there, but you'll want the coolant to keep things from rusting up.

[PICKUP6772]

What he said, and I agree about the thermostat. Flush the system out real good, and run at least 25% antifreeze. It might not get real cold down there, but you'll want the coolant to keep things from rusting up.

Anti-freeze is also for anti-BOILING. You must run a 50/50 mix AT ALL TIMES! It not only lubricates, and keeps things from freezing, it also RAISES the boiling point to keep from overheating. Thoroughly flush out the system, install a new thermostat, and install new anti-freeze. If you haven't done any damage yet, this is cheap insurance to make sure nothing does. I would, however, do a compression test, and check for water in the oil. Even if nothing got into the oil, change it anyway, as the oil has surely broken down from the overheating.
Mike