last few days been noticing white smoke coming from out of my truck’s tail pipe when idling and at start up. 1991 4 L ford ranger. anything to worry about? or could be wrong
Does it have an automatic transmission?
Tester
1 Like
Could be. Some white smoke out the tailpipe on cold starts is normal. It should go away after 3-5 minutes of idling. Suggest to ask a helper to drive behind in another car as you accelerate your warm engine rapidly up a freeway on ramp. If the helper sees a lot of white smoke, there’s definitely some sort of problem that needs to be addressed.
Common causes
- coolant entering cylinders due to incontinent head or intake gaskets
- automatic transmission fluid sucked into intake manifold due to incontinent vacuum modulator
- brake fluid sucked into intake manifold due to incontinent brake booster
1 Like
ok, thanks for the suggestions. pulled the vacuum hose off for the auto trans and checked it. there were drops of trans fluid in there so it would be the trans module that was busted. fixed and thanks. was pretty sure it was not a head gasket.
cheers
4 Likes
Thanks for the feedback OP. Good to know your Ranger is back on the road sans white smoke.