89 f-150 5.8 smoke question

Hi all,

Ok I have a 89 F-150 with a 5.8 351w. It began to put out white smoke and now it just dies unless you keep giveing it gas. a System engine light came on but I can't go have it checked because it fills the entire block with white smoke.

If you ope the hood, you can also see white smoke coming from where I believe the EGR stem is. Could this be an EGR problem? or something worse such as a seal or something.

Could you have something leaking on the engine and smoking ?

I'm assuming that you have white smoke coming out of your tail pipe too...

White smoke is only caused by water/antifreeze getting into the cylinders, start by pulling all of your spark plugs and doing a compression test, one or more of the plugs might be soaking wet too. If your compression tests come out fine your intake manifold seals for the water ports are probably leaking water. Also check your oil for water contamination.

Has the engine been badly overheated lately?

It constantly dying is because the air/fuel mixture is being grossly diluted by all the water, kind of like throwing water on the camp fire it doesn't burn too well after that.

The EGR recycles exhaust gas back into the engine to be burned again, if there is steam going through there it is going to send the steam back as well.

Yes there is white smoke coming from the tail pipe but it hasn't been overheated though. I will pull the spark plugs, and am I looking for soaking of water or fuel? and yes it won't stay running unless I hit the gas. remember I am a newbie. :banghead:

If this is the problem, is replacement of the seals recommended? Also, I will need to get a compression tester before I move on. what am I looking for as far as compression goes.

This truck is going to be a project truck for me to learn on and hopefully be successfull at.

thanks for the replies.

Get a shop manual for your truck it should have what the compression pressures should be. As the engine ages the compression will gradually get lower as the pistons wear down but they should all be giving the same general reading in regards to each other.

Ok, when you do the compression tests you are going to find (at least) one of these three things:

1 - Nothing is wrong.
2 - One cylinder is lower than the other seven.
3 - Two cylinders right next to each other are giving the same reading and are lower than the other six.

If #1 happens your intake manifold gaskets are probably leaking into an intake port that is right next to it.

On V8 engines they are typically arranged like this: o OO x OO o

The o = water ports, the O = intake ports, on older carb. engines the x = an exhaust port that leads up to and heats up the bottom of the carb.

If #2 or #3 happens there is a problem with the head gasket or there is a crack in something .