this is a non-turbo

Im getting white smoke from the hood of the car, I've been getting the smoke for a few days now but I've been neglecting it because of time restrictions. Today the coolant light came on. Should I inspect for visible leaks for coolant? Where should I start with this?

The smoke starts to come after ...

well it's not the spring, I took the spring off and the strut off, and while the car was jacked up I grabbed the wheel and moved it up and down, and sure enough the noise was still there. Since the noise was present with the spring and strut off I guess It must the end link.


Is there anything else ...

The noise seems to be the loudest when I put my ear next the rear left wheel as someone else is bouncing on the car. Unfortunately my socket set wasn't deep enough to get the lower spring bolt out so I'm going to have to get a deep set and try again. To my ear it seems as though the noise is coming ...

Thats what I was thinking too, I will try that before taking the spring out.

So I gave the end links a visual inspection, I'm really not sure what I should be looking at but I didn't see anything that suggested to me bad end links. I attached some pictures, not sure if that will help, I couldn't get a good view.


I guess I should now look at the spring mount/spacer.


Daver

ok Ill give them a look tomorrow..I really hope its not that..that seems like a daunting task.

Daver

So I recently changed the rear struts and put new mounts . Before changing the struts there was a noise which I thought was due to bad strut mounts. But even after new mounts Im still getting the noise. I looked around the forum a bit and there was mention of bad spring seating that could cause a ...

Thats actually what I did I used some washers to push the strut over the taper. And I drove the car around, bounced on it. The stud isn't showing any signs of breaking or even bending. I feel like I'm fine with it, not scared about it snapping off.

But maybe if I see signs of bending later on ill ...

Thanks for all the info guys, helped a lot. The second one came off much easier.
And yup, I'm going to look into the welding option.

Thanks again