There are some conditions where some white smoke is perfectly normal.
Excessive, clear smoke could be coolant from a cracked head or internal
gasket failure. Grayish white smoke is usually caused by excessive oil from
bad rings, burned piston, valve guides, etc.

Dennis

>From: Wesley Pegden <wes@CS.UCHICAGO.EDU>
>Reply-To: Wesley Pegden <wes@CS.UCHICAGO.EDU>
>To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
>Subject: White smoke?
>Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2007 13:35:35 -0400
>
>My '84 1.9l started blowing white smoke a few weeks ago.  I made it home
>mostly coasting (under a mile) and checked it out, the vacuum hoses were
>all shot (cracked, falling off, etc), I figured that was the problem.
>(It also was idling really erratically).  Haven't driven it since then
>until today: I fixed the hoses finally, started it up, idles fine, drive
>it around the block, starts blowing smoke again halfway around.  When I
>get back to where I was parked before (2 minutes later) it's idling badly.
>
>Ideas?  Did I mess something up?
>
>Thanks very much!
>Wes