My car had no thermostat at all in it, so I decided to put one in it and now it smokes at idle. While cruising you can't see it but at a light its rediculous. Any ideas?

 

?

 

blown coolant seal

 

Where does the smoke come from.

 

Its coming fromm the exhaust. The strange thing is that when its cold it has no symptoms. If I run it hard on decel it smokes also.

 

Only Reason I can "think of"..this is IT:..you did not have a Thermostat in and it didn't smoke.You Put one IN,and it Smokes..the Thermostat is acting as a Valve and is creating More pressure In the System than it had before when there was no thermostat there..I am Suspecting that you have a Coolant seal Problem now,and Running around with NO thermostat was "masking" the fact...If that IS NOT the problem,well it sounded Good,at the time! ..haha!

 

I dunno Art. Id go with what he said.

 

Originally, I was gonna reply by saying "you have a blown coolant seal". I'm gonna add to that and say that MrStyx's conjecture about adding a thermostat amplifying your coolant seal problem sounds quite feasible.

 

Yup I agree with those guys about the seal. Here's a story, my friend bought a beautiful GXL and we later found that his low coolant sender was grounded so it wouldn't work and his thermostat was gone. We put one in and like magic we were getting coolant seal symptoms like bubbles and the white smoke you speak of etc. weird thing about his was that when we took it back out it would start to heat up to about half on the guage and keep going if it was at idle or a stop light for a long period of time but as soon as he started reving the engine and driving it the temp would come back down. The engine would actually run cooler the harder he drove it???? Anyways, sorry bout your engine man, save up for a gasket rebuild kit and maybe a housing or iron....