DanEck

I just bought a 97 GT about two weeks ago. When giving it a full tune up I noticed two things. One is it is throwing white smoke, I am assuming it is steam because it does not linger; two is there is rust on all 8 of the spark plugs.

At first I thought it was a leaky head gasket but I don't see how both head gaskets could be leaking into all 8 cylinders and it could be running so good. I mean the thing is running excellent. So I was thinking maybe a leak in the intake somewhere letting coolant get into all 8 cylinders. Yet after driving 5 or so miles and letting it idle for 20 minutes my radiator seems to be still full.

I put fresh gas in it thinking it could have got some water in there, fresh plugs, fresh fuel filter, fresh everything, and it is still letting out a hint of white steam. There is no coolant in the oil, (I drained it to be sure) and from the best I can tell there is no oil in coolant. Anyone have any ideas on what it could be? I normally don't come to forums for troubleshooting questions as they are so hard to answer without seeing the vehicle but I don't want to take it to a shop so here I am.

On a side not I noticed there are BBK springs in it. Do BBKs come stock on these?

FlamingoGT

Any idea how old the plugs are, or how long the car sat?
I believe 97 was still the non-PI motor, and those are problems.

I am sure the BBKs are aftermarket... a 16+ yo car I am sure would have had the springs replaced even if it wasn't a Mustang.

DanEck

It is the non pi motor. I have been thinking about making the swap soon. In the mean time do you know if any of the aluminum PI intakes will bolt right up to a non pi head? I searched for that and couldn't get a real clear answer.

96t-bird

Hi, on the head swap. there is a article on swapping the heads in the tech section.

art02gt

Coolant leaking into the combustion chamber wont cause the plugs to rust. It will cause the spark plugs to be sparkling clean. Tha only way i think they would rust is if water sat there for a while. Are u sure they we rusted? Some gasoline additives on certain gas stations will cause the spark plugs to turn a slight red color.

DanEck

No I am not sure it is rust. It just looks like rust. Yeah i read that about fuel additives but i just assumed the rust and white steam mixed together would go hand in hand.

Stevo86

If you wanna be certain rent a cooling system pressure tester from autozone. Hook it up and pressurize the system to whatever your radiator cap is rated for. If it holds pressure you don't have leaky head gaskets.

DanEck

I actually already did that. My roommate works at Oreileys so I had him, "borrow" one for the night so I didn't have to put the 200 bucks down on it. I pressurized it and let it sit for about 15 minutes and it stayed pressurized. That is what made me lean more toward it was an intake manifold leak. I will just start tearing it apart my next few days off and see what's going on.

art02gt

I wouldn't tear things apart just yet. you might not find anything. if you say the car drives fine then just drive it. Maybe there is a leak but it's still too small to be detected. keep an eye on it and see if anything comes up.

robb15033

Might want to clean out the pcv vacuum line to intake. Seafoam it carefully, maybe put an inline generic fuel filter to monitor oil vapors being pulled in. Some install a catch can or oil filter/separator. That's just a suggestion, the white smoke can be diagnosed better by some of the pro's here.