1996 c2500 5.7 smokes

[sback2010]

When I start the truck in the morning and take off I get white smoke. Also, on a hard acceleration I get a huge plume of white smoke. Sometimes oil is a quart low and coolant sometimes is low but no leaks. What might this be. I have read head gaskets and or manifold gasket.

 

[96-1500]

White smoke, burning coolant. Black smoke, burning oil. A general rule of thumb, but it could be burning both.

Intake gaskets are extremely, extremely common on any small-block Vortec. It could be a head gasket, but I'd bet you it's the intake. They all fail on these engines it seems.

I'm planning on doing mine in the spring, as a preventative measure. Not bad yet to my knowledge, but I don't know if they've been replaced or not.

Burning a little oil is pretty common in my experience, I wouldn't worry too much about that unless it's really excessive. Going through coolant though, is not a good sign.

 

[sback2010]

Thanks, found out the coolant was low because of water pump. weep hole in bottom was slowly leaking unnoticeable, until the other day when it was pouring out. I replaced it and no more antifreeze leek but still getting white smoke. Planning on swapping out my ebay air intake for a k&n cold air intake soon because truck seems to be running a little rich.

 

[92GMC]

White smoke, burning coolant. Black smoke, burning oil.

gonna disagree here, blue smoke is oil, black smoke is fuel

 

[Mean Green]

Start by doing a compression test, if there is more then a 15 psi differance between any cylinders; that would indicate a head gasket failure. Do you notice any milky colored oil in the crankcase/dipstick?