White Smoke Under Hood?

I have a 2004 Chevy S-10 about 61K Miles. Recently I have experienced white smoke comming from under the hood. A few weeks ago I was driving home from work (after about 50 miles) and noticed a small amount of white smoke comming from under the passenger side of the hood.

I got home and checked over all my fluids and guages everything looked ok. I did add some oil, which I spilled down part of the fill area. I then drove the vehicle later that night and the next morning (50 Miles) and no smoke. At lunch time that day I drove 50 miles again and the smoke began again, a little worse this time. I thought maybe it was the oil burning off from the night before that I spilled.

Since I have driven the vehicle about 1500 additional miles over the past two weeks , including trips over of 200 miles at a time and did not notice this smoke.

Today I left for work and drove about 2 miles and the smoke was the worse it has been yet. It is still comming from the passenger side area of the engine, down in between the oil fill area, and that side of the truck. I can't tell exactly where.

The only thing that really was different last night when I parked, was I was on a down hill slope all night for about 10 hours vs. a flat area.

Any insight? I know this was long but I wanted to get the details in.

I would almost think that it's steam.
You might have a pinhole in a rad or heater hose.
It could also be a head gasket, or intake manifold gasket.

My guess is it's probably spraying onto the exhaust manifold, causing the steam.

But unless I actually saw your truck it's only a guess

Thanks, why would it be so sporadic like that? I am about 8 miles from the shop. Will I be doing more damage driving it? All guages are normal and running fine, just smokey and burning smell.

cooling systems are kinda weird, that way.

You didn't mention the burning smell. Coolant is usually a sweet smell, so that stumps me.

Just watch your fluid level and temptuture. Then you should be fine.

My wife is taking right now, hopefully the shop will go easy on her. I looked under the hood more last night. What was weird, next to the dip stick for the transmission was a black sponge covering what appeared to be some sort of button. The sponge was soaked in an oily red substance. Since my Dexcool is read I wasn't sure if that would be it?

Its a seal on the transmission fluid somewhere. Luckily no transmission damage. I had the check engine light come on months ago and that was the code. The shop at that time said there was nothing wrong, they checked it with special dye (or something) and there was no indication of a leak. Figures when I had the warranty no problem found, at 61K miles, $400 problem found.

Did they say what the buttons for then?

Never found out. ended up being two seals. got truck back, looks like maybe they forgot a engine cover on it or something looks funny. dont know much about cars so maybe its my own paranoia

If you can send in a photo of the missing cover
Or e-mail it to me at stu69@uniserve.com

I bet the truck is 4wd and the button your seeing is the cap on the vent tube for the transfer case. If it is 4wd watch your hvac controls for problems. The S- Series has an issue that lets tranny fluid suck up into your vacumm system and causes the HVAC controls to act up. Did you take it to a dealer?

Please Help!! I just parked my car and there is white smoke under the hood. The temperature is staying the same. My biggest concern is that I have to drive 63 miles to get home. Can I drive it like this? Thank you.