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White smoke from under the hood

SiennaLover69

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 16, 2010
Messages
53
Location
citrus heights, california
So I was driving the other day not far maybe just a few miles and while waiting in a drive thru I notice my car starting to overheat. Right when it starts getting into the red I hear a pop noise from under the hood and white smoke starts pouring out (coming out mostly at the passenger side of the hood). I turn the car off and pop the hood and mostly seeing smoke coming out from around the front and to the left of the engine. I wait a bit and decide to see what happens when I turn it on and it is running okay, just a little bit of a rough idle for a couple mins and the car still running a little hot but nothing else, it runs pretty fine and I take it home (I was like 2 mins from home).
So any ideas on what it could be?
Before this happened my car would fluctuate a bit at idle but that would usually stop when the car warmed up and I've been running mostly water in the radiator for the past 6 months or so. I haven't really driven it too much the past year save for the last couple months when I started taking full time classes again.
Any help would be great! I am a super noob and have been learning as I've had to fix things lol.

Edit: Also there is no smoke coming from the exhaust, just some from under the hood. I took it for a 15 min spin earlier and I noticed it overheating just a tiny bit and a little bit of white smoke coming from the under the hood and the radiator seemed pretty empty.
 
Last edited:

prove_it

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 3, 2008
Messages
4,201
Location
Sioux Falls, SD
Probably had a plugged radiator that finally cracked.
 

SiennaLover69

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 16, 2010
Messages
53
Location
citrus heights, california
Cool, hoping it would be something fairly simple lol. So just replace the radiator and im good to go? Sorry for the crappy first post btw, I was already late for work so just tried posting something real quick lol.
 

FlyingEagle

Staff member
Joined
Mar 5, 2005
Messages
1,635
Location
THE Ottawa
Get pressure on the system and see where it blows out from.

I overheated my setup when running link for the first time and had a billowing smoke stack from my overflow container.

Not a pretty sound or sight. I was horrified, but the rest of the system held up, even the weeping at the hose clamp over my SSSS which is a bitch to keep tight/sealed.

Cracked rad top, split hose up top, or other.

Need to perform proper diagnosis.
 
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