While driving my brother's '76 with a 390 4bll., I got on it pretty good leaving a stop sign. After that, it starts missing and is blowing a huge cloud of white smoke that smells like antifreeze from one side. Did I blow a head gasket? Why would it do it all the sudden?

 

Yeah white is typically coolant ...........if its darker that usually means oil too....

 

Sounds like a head gasket to me. Hopefully not a cracked head or block.

 

It's definitely antifreeze. I guess I get to pull a cast iron intake manifold tomorrow.

 

Use a cherry picker

 

I have an over head hoist in the shop. It's still a pain to get set right without messing up the gaskets.

 

It's possible for coolant to leak across the coolant port to an intake port if an intake gasket goes bad. Had it happen on a 428 once.

 

That would still most likely blow the head gasket, right? (water doesn't compress)

 

Try a compression check.

 

Probably not but I suppose it's possible. It didn't leak enough when it was running to blow a head gasket, just the white smoke. It did hydrolock a couple times before I got home to fix it. But that was after setting an hour or so.

 

They all check out good, all over 135 psi. The crank case has some water in it, but it was only run about a mile while blowing smoke. Do I need to change bearings? Rings? I assume no to the rings because it has 135 PSI.

 

Just for ****s and grins, safety, I'd probably change the intake and head gaskets and the oil and filter.

 

The intake gaskets are definitely going to get changed (they are the cause of the problem and it leaks oil). I have heard that ethylene glycol is REALLY bad for bearings. Is it worthwhile to change head gaskets? They are obviously good to have that good of compression.