weird smoking issue

Hey guys! Have an issue now with some smoke. The engine runs fine and everything (actually idles too high when in park), but when it gets up to operating temperature, white smoke starts coming from under the hood. Open the hood and the smoke seems to be coming from under the exhaust manifold shroud. Haven't seen any from the exhaust pipe, but I might have overlooked it because of the smoke from the engine area.

So, what do you think, 3geez? Head gasket? Coolant leak hitting the exhaust and then steaming? Just an oil leak hitting the exhaust and boiling? The valve cover gasket /does/ need replacing, and there doesn't seem to be any other signs of a head gasket problem.

Thanks!

Mine did this too, before I did the valve cover gasket over a year ago. I could smell the oil burning as I was idling at a light or something. Nasty smell. Popping the hood revealed that the oil was burning UNDER the exhaust manifold shroud. The oil was leaking at a rate that caused it to run down in a little river down the spark plugs and into the manifold below. It's a fix that is under $10 including the gasket. Since it's leaking and is a cheap repair, I'd replace it anyway. Remove the three nuts and carefully pop it off. It might be stuck, help pry it off with a putty knife or the like, nothing small like a flat head screw driver or you'll knick the aluminum grooves and the gasket won't seal right. You might need to replace the gaskets for the nuts too, they tend to leak after 20+ years. If you have trouble getting the valve cover on without the gasket falling out of the grooves in the valve cover, use very small amounts of RTV in random places to keep it in there while you put it on top. The bolts are torqued to 11 ft-lb according to the repair manual. Good luck!

Yeah, I figured out that this is exactly the problem. I got it up to operating temperature and looked under the vehicle and the entire exhaust pipe was smoking. It turns out it is bluish-white smoke - indicating oil. Already had the valve cover gasket because it looked leaky. Turned out that the previous owner had changed it - but had slathered gasket sealer all over it, completely unevenly, terrible terrible terrible. Went ahead and took care of it.

Thanks so much for confirming my intuitions here!