I've got an 1987 ranger with a 92 engine in it, that i think is leaking at the head gasket, it looks like a little oil is seeping out and my coolant always needs to be topped up every month or so. White smoke for the first mile of driving or so also leads me to believe I'm leaking coolant into a cylinder.Is it possible that the bolts were never torqued properly? And if so could I retighten them or should i just bite the bullet and replace the headgasket as long as I've got the valve cover off. The engine has 86,000 miles on it and has excellent compression and runs great. doesn't use hardly any oil other than what leaks past the head gasket. thanks.

 

If you have the 2.9L you might find the following useful:

I had the exact same problem on my 90 Ranger when I bought it in 94 with 70k miles. The 2.9's have a weakness in the heads that cause them to crack. I don't know the technical terms, but the heads aren't beefy enough where the bolts for the rocker shaft attach to the heads. The new head I got had a beefier forging in this area. I didn't know this going into the job, but found out from the machine shop after taking them in for rework. I only needed (and could only afford) one head at the time and over 100k miles later it's still going strong. The crack wasn't visually evident, and the shop had to point out where the hairline crack was.
The heads are attached to the block using "torque-to-yield" bolts. These are special bolts that are tightened with a normal torque wrench, then turned an additional 90 degrees (check the spec's). This additional quarter turn will stretch the bolt, which "work hardens" it. THEY ARE A ONE TIME USE ONLY BOLT, DO NOT RETORQUE. They will break. As I recall they were about two dollars each.
When I got the heads off for re-work, I discovered that over time, the leaking antifreeze had built up a lot of sludge. I cleaned the top of the block as best I could and the reworked heads(well one reworked and one new) came back spotless, but not long after the head job was done I had to replace the oil pump and screen due to all that sludge breaking loose and stopping at the screen.
The job wasn't that difficult but took time to figure all this out. Check other postings and maybe there is some additional info on this subject. As I recall, this was a known problem with these heads and there should be a lot of discussion about them.

Good luck and I hope this helps

 

You mentioned topping up the oil but didn't say anything about the coolant. White smoke for a short time on startup is probably condensation. You can try re-torquing the head, you have nothing to loose there. You didn't say how much oil you were loosing. If the leak is minor, I might live with it until something BIG needs to be taken care of to justify the tear down. Good luck.