I’ve got some light smoke coming off my engine block, it smells slightly sweet. The smoke is not noticible unless you open the hood, and it is coming from the driver side of the engine. There are always small drops of coolant on the block. The hose is brand new, what else could be causing this?
“The hose is brand new”
Which hose did you replace?
In addition to the radiator hoses, the small-diameter hoses running to the heater core also carry coolant, and many people overlook these when replacing radiator hoses on older cars.
And, in addition to the long hoses running from the engine to the heater core, some engines also have an extremely short (and hard to access) heater-type hose connecting two parts of the engine block. (Some Ford V-6s have that extremely short hose, but I don’t know if your mystery vehicle is one of those)
If all hoses check out to be intact, then my next suspect would be the clamps on the hose that you recently replaced. Sometimes a hose clamp needs a bit of tweaking in order to seal properly.
If you have a really hard time finding the source of the seepage, a pressure test of the cooling system will reveal it for you.
You have a coolant leak, like @VDCdriver says get the system pressure tested, they should be able to find the source.
Along with the other comments, carefully look at the top radiator hose. It could have a tiny weep hole in it. It isn’t uncommon for them to have tiny pin holes when they get older, which mists the engine with coolant. You usually won’t notice big puddles and will often not see the spray unless you look carefully and the car is hot. Since your hose is new, maybe it just isn’t seated correctly.