engine probs HELP

okay symptoms are plenty white smoke out the exhaust,
sputtering at idle, and idles low,
checked the spark plugs, noticed that 1st and 2nd spark plugs had oily sludge on it but the 3rd and 4th are fine...

what could be the problem chilton's said if there is oil on the spark plug its most likely to be piston rings or head gasket lmk

White smoke usually=antifreeze=blown head gasket.Blueish smoke usually=oil=bad valve seals and /or bad rings.Sniff the exhaust fumes-if it smells sweetish it probably is antifreeze.Run a compression check to see if all cylinders are within 10 pounds or so of the same compression.150-160 pounds is about normal.Let us know what u find and I an sure others on here have some ideas for u.When was last time u tuned truck up?That might help but wont help bad rings or a blown head gasket.BJ

thanks dude i tuned it up not to long ago how much is it for a head gasket set? ill prolly or my fren will do the labor work.

is it an automajic? if it is does it shift alright?...if it dosent check the shifter solenoid..its vacunm opperateted and if the diaphram in it is crapped out it will suck tranny fluid into the intake..making for a rater nice smoke show every time you start the truck

yeah its auto... wheres the shifter solenoid

its on the driverside of the tranny ...llooks like a vacum motor...look in the intake i cant remember exactly where its hooked up but there would be tranny fluid in the vacum hose where it connects to the intake..

ok so far me and my father opened up the motor took off the head and seen that the gasket was busted so we replaced it and hooked everything back up... the motor runs fine now but still smokes out of the tail pipe like crazy...im thinking the piston rings are not holding the oil back i need yall input

like sotherrazed said sheck to see if the selinoid is bad the one in my stepdads ranger went bad and his truck ran like crap .... smoked spit and sputtered

but i have a 32/36 weber in my truck so there shouldn't be nd trans oil in my intake right since i did away with all them vacuum hoses right?

i had a similar problem. my truck smoked like mad,so we figured bad valve seals,so I had the head rebuilt. We put it back together,fired the truck up and it still smoked like mad. We tore down the bottom end and discovered a very,tiny crack in the oil ring in the #3 cylinder. Funny part was,the truck ran just fine,and very smooth,but it just smoked like mad until it had warmed up to normal temperature.

Tearing your engine down is probably the last thing you want to do,but it might be worth it. How many miles are on the truck? Mine only had 80k miles on it when I had it rebuilt.