Howdy all,
Here's my story:
I bought my J-10 as a fixer-upper project last November off of a guy who already performed some mods on it. It has the 360 V8.
I drove it home about 10 miles last November without incident and parked it in front of my house. A few days later, I couldn't start it. Eventually, about a month later, it started. It belched a bunch of blue smoke. Since I was talking to my neighbor instead of periodically goosing the accelerator, it cut out after a few minutes of running. Then it wouldn't restart.
I had it towed to my friend's place because she had a nice off-street parking spot. It sat there for several months while I tinkered with the interior.
Finally, last Wednesday, I got it started. It took several tries and quite a few shots of starting fluid. She ran without cutting out. The exhaust was running clear, even, and strong. The engine chugged nicely and evenly and properly tractorlike for a V8. The only troublesome thing was some smoke/steam rising from somewhere toward the back/sides of the engine -- from both sides. On that very first start, there was quite a bit of smoke that came out after about 2-3 minutes. So I shut her down.
Subsequent tries to start her up were successful, she turned over with what seemed like minimal cranking and effort of the starter (so unlike my MJ even on the best of days). While I had the opportunity, I did spray a few shots of carb cleaner into the intake; the carb is definitely in need of some cleaning and rebuilding. But after about 2-3 minutes, though, that pesky smoke/steam came out again, though nowhere nearly as much as the first time. It looks a lot like it's originating from the exhaust headers -- which is odd -- and it smells sort of like that not pleasant smell of oil and schmutz burning off of a hot surface. However, the headers don't look excessively grimy, though the engine is somewhat oily and dirty in some places.
Unfortunately, I can't trust the gauges at this point, so I don't know if it's an overheating issue. The engine doesn't feel too hot to the touch and there's no hissing like I typically associate with overheating. Usually, the gauges don't register anything, though on two occasions both the oil pressure and water temp gauges rose to full scale as soon as I started her up. I'm planning on installing an aftermarket temp gauge to see what the true state of the engine temperature is -- the t-stat housing has nice built-in port for an aftermarket sensor/bulb. I checked the radiator and both the level and color of the coolant seemed ok. The oil looks appropriately black and used and without any froth. Tomorrow, though, I do plan on changing it and seeing what, if anything, drains out with it. I'm also gonna check out the t-stat and replace the radiator cap. (The previous owner had replaced the clutch fan with a flex fan...which has no shroud)
But that white smoke bothers me, obviously. It didn't seem to do it before either when I took possession of the truck or when I fired her up last December. I need to vacate my friend's parking spot and move the truck into my garage now that there's space. I'd like to just drive it over, but I don't want to blow out the motor. I'm hoping it's not a pain in the ass sort of thing like a gasket (though I'll try Mike Romain's test which he wrote about in another overheating thread).
Any suggestions, ideas, comments, etc?
Cheers, /tom