So my Son Josh died in a car wreck in 2008, he was 20.. I am working on restoring his 1983 Camaro .I had a friend help me restore the door locks, interior driver door was pretty much bare and is now done. Passenger seat is bolted down. A week before the parade last June the engine started blowing White smoke. I checked the antifreeze and it was low. It could possibly be a head gasket or cracked cylinder head. How would I go about finding out? I don't mind get greasy or dirty. I worked really hard on this car and it pulled this crap!!
Any and all help appreciated.

 

Sure, could be. Not likely however.

Consider that a leeeeeek allows fluids or gases under HIGH pressure, to penetrate into a place of LOW pressure. Always. Never goes the other way.

Now: of the 2 locations on either side of a head gasket or casting - cylinders, or water jackets - which one has HIGH pressure more of the time, and which one has LOW pressure? Therefore, if either of those 2 parts has failed, WHAT would be leeeeeking WHICH WAY the most? (not exclusively of course; just, the most) Pretty eeeeeezzzzzy to see that COMBUSTION would be leeeeeeeking into the cooling system, and that COOLANT would leeeeeek into the cylinders FAR LESS. (again, not exclusively; just, the most) Which means, when those parts fail, things happen like radiator caps blowing off, hoses bursting, and stuff like that, in addition to small amounts of coolant getting into the cylinders. Combustion is also VERY EEEEEEZZZZZZZY to detect in the coolant: you can pick up a little "kit" at the corner parts store to test for that. No need for a teardown to make that determination.

Given that, don't be so quick to jump to the worst doom & gloom conclusion possible. Use some logic, reason, and discipline; gather evidence, test your guesses scientifically, and stay focused. No "maybe it's this maybe it's that maybe it's the space aliens torturing me for their amusement".

First thing to do is, top off the coolant, and find & repair the leeeeeek(s) that allowed it to get low. Next, get one of those test kits, and look for combustion in the coolant. If there isn't any then you can rule out gaskets for sure, and almost certainly (though not absolutely) cracks in castings.

From there, there are several other things that can cause coolant to get into the intake tract, if in fact it's burning coolant. That would depend on which engine it has. There are 4 main choices; 4-cyl, 6-cyl, carbed 305, EFI 305. We'd need to know which it has to proceed further. If in fact the issue is even coolant to begin with.

 

with all of that but to KISS, I would focus on:
^that. I'd top it off, put a pressure tester on it and see what happens.

 

To help complete the data table, it would be helpful to learn the following:

How long was the engine stored/sitting unused since the last time the coolant level was checked? If this is the first time it has been noted as "low" in 15 years, it might not be a symptom.

Does the "smoke" occur within seconds of a cold start? If the condition does not appear until the engine has been run for several minutes, that could be a clue.

If the engine is run to full operating temperature, does the "smoke" still appear in the exhaust?

 

It's a 1983 Camaro V8, the fuel injector is on the side of the carburetor.

 

It's either fuel-injected w 2 little TBI units, one on each side of the engine; or it's carbed, with one 4-bbl carburetor in the center.

However all that may be, if it's a V8, the coolant parts are all the same in either case. Once you've performed the test as described, we'll see if we can guide you further.

To follow through a bit on Vader's comments, an old carbed engine, typically runs VERY rich at startup, for a few minutes, even when working perfectly; and this can sometimes cause STEAM - not "smoke" - to appear out the exhaust until the whole exhaust gets good and hot. Might take 5 or 10 minutes. Regardless, if the thing has been sitting for that long without running, you should probably go ahead and drive it around a little bit to get all the rust and crud of one sort and another out of it. Old gasoline that's gone bad for instance. Might want to go ahead and burn off whatever is in it now, and not worry too much what the exhaust looks like for the time being, until after it gets rid of the old stinky stuff and has a whole fresh new tankful in it.

 

take a video of the car running, and smoke coming out from it.
post it to youtube, then post the youtuibe link here and we can see it too.

open the hood when you do the video, and we can see the engine, the smoke and all that jazz..

super easy, wont take 4 minutes to do, and there wont be anymore confusion