I bought a 1997 f-150 4.6 v8 Romeo engine for a few hundred bucks from a soldier about to leave to Korea. He needed the money and i needed something to do. I knew it had a bad head gasket on the passenger side of the engine. So I ripped the engine apart. Had the heads checked out. Cleaned it all up and put it back together again. I now have a a very very very bad leaking fuel injector on cylinder number 8. To the point if it sits for a bit you can actually see gas on the header. Im no longer getting white smoke out of the passenger side exhaust but still getting white smoke out of the driver side. Now drove the truck a few miles and the smoke stopped. At idle no smoke. Truck sat overnight and now its smoking again. Have the fuel injector on order. My question is i replaced both head gaskets. Both heads where fine. The water droplets that drop out of the exhaust on the left side smell like gas and catch on fire just like gas. I really hope i didnt mess up the gasket on the left side and have to redo that head gasket. Its not over heating and the smoke disappears after driving it a few miles. Any opinions. While at idle the smoke is almost like exhaust on a cold day but just on the left side but when you rev it it bellows out and goes away kinda quickly. Now when the head gasket was messed up the smoke was bellowing out at idle and worse at driving. Very confused.

 

The pictures are the exhaust from idle to rev to idle again.

 

Unfortunately, that white smoke sure looks like water to me. Does it have the sweet smell of burning antifreeze? I think I'd start with replacing the injector since dripping gas on the exhaust doesn't sound like a good plan to me, but I'm still suspicious of that head or gasket. I'm assuming by the way you describe it that the exhaust is true duals with no crossover?

 

I just did the head gaskets on my '97 F150 4.6 Windsor and I'll warn you that when the manual says to clean and dry the valve cover gasket surfaces before installing, it means it! I ended up pulling both of mine off again to correct that major oil leak...

 

Sorry I didn't get back to you guys sooner with the problem fixed. Thanks for the response. I did clean the heads and blocks with the stuff from the dealer ship. All 8 cylinders pressure tested just fine. I ended up changing the oil 3 times and running it for a few hours. After the injectors were replaced no gas but still a lot of white smoke with NO antifreeze smell. So we took off the exhaust and there was a lot of plain water in it. And yes it is true exhaust with no cross over. It runs fine now. Thanks again for the responses.