The wifes car and a husband with little time for the car . . . The coolant was slowly disapearing with no apparent sign of leakage. Then one day last week while on the freeway, about two miles from home, white smoke/steam was coming out from behind the car. Within a minute or so it stopped. I watched the temp guage the entire time and it never moved past the center - normal position. The car ran perfect the whole time. When I got home, a little steam was coming from under the hood towards the rear of the engine on the drivers side.

Some info that led me to believe my head gasket was the cause.

1.)water in system very low or gone.
2.)Black soot in empty water overflow tank. Almost looks like black oil.

How did oil (black oil soot) get into my radiator overflow tank - it had to be a head gasket

So this weekend I started to pull the head and have the following results:

1.)Drained oil - Engine oil looks perfect. No sign of water (gray/whitish, etc...).
2.)water port under thermostat looks perfect - no corrosion
3.)manifold off - Exhaust ports look as expected.
4.)Valve cover removed - no sign of water contamination, oil looks perfect.
5.)Spark plugs look perfect, light tan in color . . .
6.)Compression check - 157 to 165 lbs each cylinder
7.)Remainder of radiator fluid leaking as a result of disassembly looks perfect - normal light green in color.
8.)Cracked hose under intake manifold coming out of head going to valve then to firewall - heater hose.
9.)Black box below, same location, just behind EGR valve has a large amount of black residue around it and the general area. A hose goes from this black box to my radiator - could this explain the black sooty oil stuff in the overflow tank ?

I Never took the head off because I now believe the cause was related to the split hose, black box and soot . . .

Any suggestions ?

Thanks! Pickles