I am suspecting a failed head gasket but i dont know. I start the truck up and it idles greay about 30 to 45 seconds later white smoke or vapor starts pouring out of the crank case vent tubes and the oil fill. When i romp on the gas it sends the same smoke or vapor out of the exhaust but only a touch of it. it doesnt smell like antifreeze at all either. it is running on gas that is about a year and a half old but i check the coolant levels before and after i run it and they dont look any lower than when i started. please help me out because i have to have this truck done by august 5th at the latest... i have to save every penny i make to buy new tires and other misc. parts i will need once i fix what im focused on now btw, this is the 4.7l v8 with about 260k miles on it

 

I ordered an emission gas tester for the coolant to see if its a bad head gasket. i have a feeling that the one on the driver side is blown because i can hear a "miss" in one of the cylinders

 

[QUOTE=GulfCoast WhiteBoy;3400962]I ordered an emission gas tester for the coolant to see if its a bad head gasket[ /QUOTE]
They rent those for free at most auto parts stores. You just buy the blue solution. Around six bucks at napa.

 

[QUOTE=Dodgevity;3401017]i ave multiple vehicles that im working on and my closest auto parts store is 30 miles away. and they only rent the tools for 48 hours. this makes it easier to diagnose all my engines

 

Suspected head gasket failure is no fun at all. Are you having to add a bunch of coolant to the engine? Have you pulled the spark plugs to take a look at them? I would look at the plugs for a sign. If you have to replace it the head gasket, it's not the end of the world. Don't reuse the old head studs, get new ones and torque them down right. I recently started up mine on 2 year old gas and I didn't have any of these vapors you're talking about

 

I added some because it was low but i haven't noticed that any coolant has been lost. I haven't pulled the plugs yet but i will try to when I get home today. The only thing that scares me is the OHC heads on this engine... I've only worked on old Chevy v8s and ford straight 6s. I can reuse the timing stuff for it right? If i need to replace the timing set then it's gonna put me way over budget on this truck. If I'm able to pull the plugs on this engine I will take pictures of them labeled by cylinder number for y'all to look at

 

Did you say the truck sat unused for a long period of time? If so maybe the problem is as simple as stuck piston rings causing excessive blow by excessive crankcase pressure.

You could try pulling the plugs and pouring 1 oz. of mmo in each cylinder lit sit a day plugs out then cycle the engine a few times still no plugs pour more mmo in repeat. This should free any stuck piston rings mmo is thin and will drain past the rings into the crankcase just be sure to give it 3 or more hours to compleatly drain out the last time before installing the plugs to fire the engine up.

I would check your PCV engine breather system be sure its not plugged up

mmo = Marvel Mystery Oil

 

The plugs should tell you something. I don't know about the 4.7. I have a 3.9 and it is not overhead cams. I have one cam in the middle of the engine and push rods to the heads to operate the valves. Let us know once you checked the plugs or did the exhaust test. That will help you determine. If it were me I would check the coolant level when the engine is cold. Start it up and let it idle for 30min to an hour to maybe two hours. You can't just walk away from it during this test. Be near the truck and check every few minutes to see if your coolant temp is creeping up. Let the truck cool all the way back down. Check coolant level the next day. If it is the same level, you don't have a coolant issue.