A few months ago I was driving my bobcat T180 around, and it suddenly blew the rear plug and white smoke was blowing out the exhaust. I wasn't sure what it was, but after doing some searches I saw people suggesting a cracked head or a bad head gasket. SO, I disassembled and rebuilt the engine head; of course the head gasket was fine and there was no cracks in the heads. I rebuilt the head (but with a new gasket) and turned her on. When I turned it on for the first time, there seemed to be a coolant leak with white smoke and coolant visibly leaking from the pump. After running it for a few minutes, both the white smoke and the leak went away. It ran fine for a few months, and it just happened again, after trying to get out of the swamp; but maybe some water got into the engine from the bottom (it almost reached the battery). Any clues? Is it the water pump?
Did you Magnaflux or Dye-check the head for cracks?
Visual inspection only, I'm afraid. I should note it's only got 1600 hours on it, and it has the "Deluxe" control panel that'll show me if anything is wrong. Today for example, it told me there was "critically low engine oil pressure".
So it seems the thermostat housing gasket failed, and coolant probably seeped into the crankcase somehow. I fixed the housing and there's no more milky oil... but now I have another problem... I'm getting low engine oil pressure. Confirmed with a manual gauge that it's low- on startup it's 15 PSI idle/30 PSI full, but it quickly drops to 10 and 20 for idle/full. Replaced the filter, too.