A significant amount of white smoke from 1999 tacoma prerunner

All, long time lurker, first time poster. Thank you all for being a great community.

Today I replaced my battery that needed to be replaced, so my truck had been sitting without running for a week (not uncommon though as I usually use it as a weekend vehicle).

It's a 1999 tacoma prerunner, and I started everything up normally, and then boom, tons of white smoke came out of the exhaust: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWuyyLeXDOM

Although it's a bit wet today in the Bay Area of California, I felt like this was beyond just a little condensation.

I shut it off, turned it back on, and again, significant amounts of white smoke. Considering I've never seen this happen with my truck, I went into panic mode.

After driving around for a few minutes, the smoke slightly subsided, but was still present after about 4 mins of driving. I parked it, left it running, and took this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUl4QY7bEAU

Checked my oil, and it looks normal and not milky.

Any thoughts on what else I should check, or has anyone else had this same experience?

Should I lose sleep over this? Thank you!

 

Take off your radiator gasket and warm up the truck, see if it looks like your fluid is boiling.

Head/head gasket or a sticking ring would be my 2 guesses. It doesn't take much oil to smoke like crazy, doesn't take much water either.

 

White smoke means water, likely a blown head gasket. Common problem on old V6's.

 

At a minimum you should closely monitor the coolant level to see if you are losing any. The coolant will also turn into a "chocolate milkshake" if exhaust gasses are leaking into it. Also, if it is the head gasket leaking you don't want the coolant level to drop and overheat otherwise you might end up with a warped head in addition to needing a new head gasket.

 

Thank you all for the responses, and I just wanted to follow up on this thread.

After 2 days of letting my truck sit, I opened the radiator cap where there was still pressure in the system, which led me to think there isn't necessarily a leak somewhere. I ended up driving it around for 10 mins, and my guess is there was just water built up in the exhaust from the fog and rain. Now I've driven it over 50 miles, and there doesn't seem to be a single problem with it.

 

Good to hear it's fixed

 

Tbh i think that was smoke not steam but if all is good all is good.

 

You never mentioned how the "smoke" smelled. To subside in quantity like that, all else being well, and engine sound still good, then it was all condensation.

A lot gets trappedin the muffler. Look closely at the exhaust tip, and you should see water dripping out sometimes. The condensation is also inside the engine, and gets burnt off through the warming up of the engine. Catch cans catch a majority of the moisture that tries to go through the PCV system.

 

Also, if it were rings or a head gasket, then this: combusted oil's smoke lingers for some time, while coolant dissipates quite quickly.

 

The more comical response would have been, "Did a steam engine swap?"

If you pay close attention to your second video, you'll notice that there is a fresh water puddle, which is starting to run, right under you exhaust tip. From the steam.