blowing white smoke

Hi new owner of a 96 rodeo 2.6L. Had it overheat 4 days ago after I drove it home from work and left it running in driveway for 20 minutes. noticed today that when I started it up after work it blew white smoke from exhaust that smelled like antifreeze. It quit blowing smoke ofter acouple of minutes and ran ok for the drive home the idle was alittle rough but nothing else. checked the oil and did`nt see or smell any coolant in it also checked around the head to see if it was blowing anything but it was also fine. Any ideas???

is your rad overflow res going low? sounds to me like a cracked/warped head or head gasket...pull all plugs and run compression test..also, check your motor oil for a "milkshake" consistancy....

No milkshake in the oil it looks good and does`nt smell like coolant. I`m pretty sure the head gasket is blown, but I`m still trying to figure out what would have made it overheat. Will let you know what kind of progress I make on it.

Man that little thing is a pain to work on. I spent 3 and 1/2 hours on it and still don`t have the head out of it. probably gonna just replace the head and not worry about trying to get it reworked.

what were the results of the compression check? try not to screw the head gasket up too much as once the head is off, it should be evident where the leak was.
have you checked on the price of head? how much more is it than having the head checked and planed?

You will certainly want to replace the thermostat before running it again. Might want to have the radiator flow tested and flushed.