New car, new vapors

RockyMountainTercel · Sat Aug 19, 2006 11:54 pm

I just bought an '84 Tercel 4WD for about $500. It was sitting for a month or so, but it was a daily driver before that. I towed it home and got it to start, but the previous owner replaced the timing belt but never re-timed it afterwards so it idles very high and runs very rich. I haven't re-timed it yet because I'm waiting to borrow a timing light, but I'm not sure if that is part of the problem anyway. Whenever i start it (after a good 20 to 30 seconds of cranking) thick white smoke comes out of the tailpipe. This will continue for about half a minute or so then go away. When I stopped to put gas in it tonight I noticed that some white vapors were coming out from under the hood. I opened the hood and saw white vapors coming from a hole in the coolant overflow tank and when I pulled the lid those vapors were coming from the overflow hose. Does this mean I have cracked heads and am burning coolant? I just bought this car to see myself through school, but I don't want it to burn up and leave me stranded. Any help is greatly appreciated.

~Mark

takza · Post by **takza** » Sun Aug 20, 2006 4:37 am

Sounds like a head gasket problem. Can check by starting it cold with the rad full and check for bubbles inside the rad cap.

Typrus · Post by **Typrus** » Sun Aug 20, 2006 9:24 am

Wonder if he tried to take the head off to change it then realized it wasn't necessary so he just set it back down hoping none were the wiser?

RockyMountainTercel · Post by **RockyMountainTercel** » Sun Aug 20, 2006 8:03 pm

I'm not sure what he did, though I can't imagine he would have taken the head off to change the timing belt. I'm pretty sure it is a leakign head gasket simply due to the amount of water I'm losing. Also, there appears to be all kinds of crap in my coolant overflow tank, which is never good. i'm going to try to fix the timing and carb tonight and then take it to a mechanic to see if he thinks it is a head gasket. How hard are those to replace on one of these things?

Typrus · Post by **Typrus** » Sun Aug 20, 2006 11:12 pm

Not horribly. Involves removing the timing belt though.
My personal suggestion would be to have the head and block checked for warping and cracks, as the blown gasket might have caused an overheat or 2.