Black = Too Rich
Blue/Grey/White* = Oil

What makes me laugh is Blue smoke being diesel, now that is gold!!!

* = people have opposing opinions on which colour they saw come from the exhaust, it could be any of these, either way it needs a rebuild [/quote]

white can mean water coming out as well...

Thats the problem with plastic radiator tanks, they go brittle over time. I just replaced my radiator for the same reason. I was lucky it hadn't failed like yours did.

yeah trust me it wasn't the way that i wanted it to go

Yeah WHITE smoke is definately water in the engine and either cracked head or head gasket. But is emitting Black Smoke bad for your engine. I often see other cars emitting it when they give their cars a bootful and I think that dont look good

Well many cars are tuned to run rich, when given a bootfull on the accelerator; there is black smoke emitted.
Infact there isnt many FORDS that do not do this, some alot worse than others, but it doesnt nec. mean the car is fuked, just runs too rich or had lots of carbon in the exhaust to blow out!
My old fairlane never really blew any great amount of any smoke when given a kick altho after i did exhaust it blows a fair bit of cxarbon out, the tips on it are a tell tale of that as it only takes little driving to make them go from shiney chrome to black.

Yeah Daniel my Chrome tip is more like a Black tip at times. As I believe like you said that my EL also belchs out a little balck smoke from time to time. But it dosent use any Oil either, so burnt fuel it is