White Smoke in exhaust

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djohn

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Oct 2, 2016
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Ram Year
2000
Engine
v10 Magnum
I just bought my 2000 Ram 2500 truck with v10 Magnum. I have no history with it. It has lots of white smoke in exhaust after it warms up. The smoke is not sweet. It burns your eyes. There is no CE light and I am losing coolant at a slow but steady rate. No oil loss I can see and no performance issues. Runs relatively smooth. Also, the oil is clean and shows no sign of being mixed with coolant. I have noticed the temp gauge stays steady at about 1/4 range after warmup

It's a beater truck so I will not be changing head gaskets or checking for cracks.

My burning eyes tell me it's partially burned fuel but isn't that going to be black? The white smoke tells me coolant but it doesn't smell like that. Oil may look white/blueish but I'm not losing oil and what of that eye burning?

So I guess I'm asking what this may be and what, besides head removal, can be done to stop it? I put a can of the copper stop leak additive in the coolant but the jury is still out on whether it helped.

Thoughts? opinions?
 

whetrick1

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5.7 Hemi
Sounds like a head gasket leak and it could be burning your eyes because of unburnt fuel mix in with it. The loss of coolant tells me you have a head gasket or head problem.


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whetrick1

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Your head gasket can leak to your cylinders and not leaking into your oil. You can do a compression check on each cylinder.


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R/T_Fire

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Compression check is a good place to start but may not always tell, Alot of times a cracked head is the culprit but also a blown head gasket between the cylinder and a water jacket can also be the case.

Wasn't on a HEMI but my old yukon with a 5.3L have a cracked head near a valve guide and would slowly mist water into the intake runner and into the cylinder to burn off, finally failed after 6 months of driving and tests and checking this and that.... Even the dealer had a hard time finding the leak. Compression test was always perfect. But still a good place to start.
 

AustinB

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head gasket

Take off the radiator cap on a cold start and see if it spews water like a geyser.

One of the many possible symptoms.
 

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