Smoke Under Hood 98 Tacoma

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Easiest thing is look for leaks.

What color smoke?

What kind of smell?

Right off the bat I'm thinking oil from your valve covers onto your exhaust manifold. Then again you need to look into this yourself.

 

Oil dripping onto the exhaust manifold

 

They are found loose from time to time, but that wouldn't fix a bad gasket if that was the case.

The FIPG on your half moons and elsewhere could warrant replacing as well.

Any other leaks you can spot?

And the smoke, color? Odor?

 

Then my initial pictureless guess is what I'm thinking it is.

 

No, read above my response.

But to reiterate, seals and gaskets age.

Same with rubber hoses and bushings.

Don't expect not having to replace a bunch of items as heat from your engine bay can do that over many heat cycles.

Just expected from any old vehicle.

 

As mentioned, looks like valve cover gasket letting oil leak, just had this fixed on my 99 Prerunner this year. I was told tightening the valve cover bolts at this point can actually pinch the gasket in ways that actually warp it more so that it can make it leak more. I was going to do the job myself but I ended up paying a shop to do it, well spent $ to me, knowing it was done right. I put that off for over a year, carrying a quart all the time in the back of my truck, refilling over and over again.

 

Willing to bet it was from your valve cover. Now that you have tightened them down, maybe try to give the backside of your engine a good wash with degreaser/brake cleaner and try to get as.much gunk and residual oil off.

Next thing I would say is to grab a mirror on a stick (harbor freight) and check after a few.days or week of driving, if a leak is still there you should be able to spot its source easier.

Edit: when I did mine; tightend my valve cover bolts,.showered the back with brake cleaner, then ran into town to the car wash and pressure washed the engine bay. I kept the truck running while I was pressure washing so I'd know if any problems were happening, I've always been really paranoid of high pressure water and engine/electrical components.