Alright Jason. Not the end of the world, your way out ahead of where you started. The white smoke is probably coolant, depending on how far away the gas station we might have a problem. Your probably finding out why it got parked under that tree. Since you say it sounds like popcorn popping when you drive it we should start with two or three possible causes of that type noise.
First off I think you should check for an exhaust leak from a head gasket. Sounds crazy but..yep. That would explain both the white smoke and the popcorn noise. So look for black soot being blown out at about the headgasket level.
Second thing to check since I figure you have a headgsket out of it is cleaned off pistons. Pull all the plugs and turn the engine over till you can see the top of all the pistons. No need to be fancy, just remove all the sparkplugs and bump it over with the starter. You should be able to see the top of a couple pistons at a time. Look foe some that are cleaned off and white like a brand new piston. That's what coolant is going to do to the pistons.
Get a code reader and see what gets stored. If it's the first time your hooking up a code reader your going to have lots of codes. Clear them and drive it, see what comes back. That should tell us what to look for.
Start with that stuff but I will say popcorn sound could be 2 more things but really not the most probable. A valve could be hanging open and hitting the top of the piston. But I would expect the check engine light to be flashing if that was happening. The other is a cracked drive plate. But that I would describe as a low sounding warble sound.
First off I think you should check for an exhaust leak from a head gasket. Sounds crazy but..yep. That would explain both the white smoke and the popcorn noise. So look for black soot being blown out at about the headgasket level.
Second thing to check since I figure you have a headgsket out of it is cleaned off pistons. Pull all the plugs and turn the engine over till you can see the top of all the pistons. No need to be fancy, just remove all the sparkplugs and bump it over with the starter. You should be able to see the top of a couple pistons at a time. Look foe some that are cleaned off and white like a brand new piston. That's what coolant is going to do to the pistons.
Get a code reader and see what gets stored. If it's the first time your hooking up a code reader your going to have lots of codes. Clear them and drive it, see what comes back. That should tell us what to look for.
Start with that stuff but I will say popcorn sound could be 2 more things but really not the most probable. A valve could be hanging open and hitting the top of the piston. But I would expect the check engine light to be flashing if that was happening. The other is a cracked drive plate. But that I would describe as a low sounding warble sound.
