I had a one time occurrence of this. White smoke, low coolant. Filled it up.
Hasn't happened since [5 months]

Mike

On 8/25/07 6:34 PM, "John Rodgers" <inua@CHARTER.NET> wrote:

> Wes,
>
> The "White Smoke" syndrome of the Vanagons  is indicative of an internal
> failure resulting coolant leaking into the cylinder - usually a cracked
> head, but could be some other seal issue. Another possibility is that
> you actually have a "Blue Smoke" syndrome. Unless you are really
> familiar, they may look so similar as to look the same.  You need to
> have a compression test done immediately before further driving, or you
> could cause  a catastrophic engine failure, resulting in so much damage
> that you cannot fix the problem at reasonable cost, but will have to
> replace the engine completely. The white smoke syndrome in my case was
> really a bluish smoke - but seen at night it was difficult to tell. A
> hold burned through  the piston, scored the cylinder, destroyed the
> piston, over heated the head to the point the head had a melt point on
> it and put metal all through the engine.
>
> You have some thing major happening, and the compression test will help
> isolate it an give you info on the direction to take for repair.
>
> Regards,
>
> John Rodgers
> 88 GL Driver
>
> Wesley Pegden wrote:
>> 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
>>
>>
>>