I'm sitting on a curb at the tire place getting one flat repaired and another new tire put on. I had the opportunity to watch my car start up and the guy gave it a little much after two failed start attempts when I yelled "give him some gas", but when he turned over that third time, there was a good bit of white exhaust smoke. This is pretty normal for my car. Usually it's just a moderate amount, but it's always there, either hot or cold.

What am I looking at here? I'm pretty darn sure that continual white exhaust ain't exactly standard.

Thanks!

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1965 Dodge Dart
'85 225 /6
Holley 1920

"just give him some gas"

White exhaust on startup is normal, especially during colder temps. What you are seeing is steam- the condensation that collects inside the muffler line and muffler is heating up and evaporating as the exhaust line heats up. Continuous white exhaust while driving after the engine has fully warmed up is a sign that the engine is burning coolant somehow.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

Yes, look more closely at it to make sure it's not just steam. If it's denser than steam and is bluish-white, it's oil smoke, and seeing it on startup but not much of anytime else suggests less-than-perfectly-new valve guides and worn-out valve stem seals.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

i had a similar thing happen today. it was 50 degrees outside but there was white/blue smoke when i started the lancer, it lasted several moments during idle until i got the temp up. eventually it ran clean out the tailpipe but then i noticed white smoke coming out from the breather cap and after that, more heavily out the cowl vent.
that doesn't seem good.

is this trouble?

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-proud new owner of a '61 lancer 170
-previous owner of a '74 dart swinger (R.I.P.)
-coming here for some schoolin'

I'd worry more about the white smoke out the breather than I would about the white steam out the tailpipe. The tailpipe steam is utterly normal. The smoke out the breather might be normal-ish, depending on how much of it there is. Unless your '61 is a California car, it probably does not have positive crankcase ventilation; instead of a rubber hose connecting a PCV valve at the rear of the valve cover to a nipple on the carburetor base, there's a metal pipe curving over the outboard edge of the rear of the valve cover and extending downward under the car. So if there's any blowby (combustion pressure leaking past the rings into the crankcase) you're going to see it out the breather. The thing is, you have a no-miles car that is half a century old. It is very likely the rings are at least partly stuck. Run some Kreen through the engine and/or give it a soup treatment, and see if that cuts down on the blowby. It is also certainteed that you are in need of new valve stem seals; yours will be crispy at best. Procedure here.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

just looked at the VIN, this car was made in st. louis, and i assume lived there up until i got it. maybe it doesn't like cincinnati!
thanks! i will definitely go with the kreen first, since that seems like a fairly easy first-step.
i should reiterate though that the smoke coming out the breather cap was way less noticeable than the way it was coming out the cowl vent by the wipers. the smoke continued out that vent for a minute or two after i killed the engine.

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-proud new owner of a '61 lancer 170
-previous owner of a '74 dart swinger (R.I.P.)
-coming here for some schoolin'

oh, by the way, how much kreen is needed? qt? gallon?

thanks.

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-proud new owner of a '61 lancer 170
-previous owner of a '74 dart swinger (R.I.P.)
-coming here for some schoolin'

Soup is less costly (and ingredients are available locally), and the replace-filter-several-times procedure still needs doing no matter whether you use Kreen or soup. But your choice. You'd need a gallon of Kreen, if you go that route, and 3 quarts of engine oil, and a good quality oil filter, for each flush cycle (Yes, this will fill the crankcase above the "full" line on the dipstick -- you want the crankshaft to splash the stuff around onto the cylinder walls.)

If you're getting white smoke out the cowl vent, the hood-to-cowl seal and/or the road draft tube (the aforementioned hard metal pipe running down the side of the rear of the valve cover off the top) are probably faulty or missing.

"California car" in this context means place first sold, not place built. CA required positive crankcase vent in '61, NY in '62, rest of country + Canada got it as standard equipment for '63.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.