Excess steam (White smoke) and water coming from my tail pipe?

Okay, I bought a 1996 Ford Ranger 6cylinder 4.0 XLT truck about a week ago. The guy knew something was wrong with it, figured since I was female, I couldnt fix it… Turns out he may be right. I took the motor apart down to head gasket, but didn't actually change the head gasket. I cleaned everything up from the oil, but hated the thought of having to go into the head gasket. However, days later, a new intake gasket, thermometer and coil pack later, I still have this ridiculous amount of water and steam coming from my tail-pipe. I'm hoping its not the head gasket but wondering what ya'll think. Before you ask, the motor runs and starts fine, the oil is not milky. I'm thinking the vehicle has the original spark plugs (Plan to replace those when I do the combustion test when i change those), but not sure if that would even effect the water in exhaust issue.

Added (1). The motor does not overheat

The water (Radiator fluid) does go down

It IS steam, not oil smoke.

The intake gasket was not torqued properly, could a warped intake cause this issue?

How do I properly test a bad head gasket?

White smoke in the middle of summer means burning oil, not water. Troubleshoot from there.

My shadetree test (100% accurate so far) is to take the radiator cap off when cold, pinch closed the hose to the recovery bottle, start the engine and place the palm of my hand over the radiator neck. If you feel steadily rising pressure within five seconds the head gasket is the most likely suspect; if not, the head gasket is okay.

What puzzles me is you don't mention how fast it is losing coolant. If not losing noticeable amounts of coolant something else is going on.

Re Vera is right that white smoke in an engine with a catalytic converter is often oil smoke - it was blue before converters. The water is normally just condensation; burning a gallon of gas produces right at a gallon of water that is normally released as vapor too thin to see. Again, if coolant is not disappearing it is not coming out of the tailpipe.

Virtually all mid 90's Ford 4.0L V6's will have cracked heads by now. They commonly crack between the valve seats and the water jacket and the problem presents as you describe. It was such a common problem you can buy new after market heads relatively cheaply at any auto parts store.

Where is this water coming from? Is the coolant level dropping? Does the engine have less power? Is it steam or un-burnt fuel coming out of the exhaust?(smell) It does sound like a gasket, and if you stripped the engine down to the gasket, you usually have to replace it anyway. Could be a lot of things, take a video of it running and post it, would help.

It does eat up the coolant (Or did, I'm scared to test it to much when the problem is still presenting itself after I changed the intake gasket. It isn't an oil problem. What is coming from my tailpipe is steam, not smoke (I used smoke for people to know, that it presents itself as smoke.) I'm wondering if a warped intake could be the problem, I tested it with a straight edge, and it looked okay, but when I first got into the motor, I could see the intake was not torqued properly.

A cracked head, very common on inline 6 cylinder engines when overheated and not allowed to cool down slowly.
A head is cracked in one or more of the exhaust valve ports and leaking coolant directly into the exhaust header.
That V6 has cast iron heads so it could have been caused by freeze damage, but you surly do have a cracked head.
When you turn off the engine hot, pull the plugs out when cool and hand crank the engine (or use a starter buddy button), the bad leaking exhaust port coolant will drain back into the affected cylinder(s) via gravity with the spark plugs removed and be seen on a long cotton swab in the affected cylinder combustion chamber(s).

It sounds like you could do a head gasket being sure to use a torque wrench and get the head surfaced. Cleanliness counts. But it could be worse, a cracked head or even cracked block. There's no telling what kind of a deal you bought. So, the only choice before you is to get expert attention at least for diagnosis. They can establsh if it is just the gasket. If so, join the club. As long as the car does not seriously overheat the head gasket will be okay. But if it overheats enough it will kill them, more so than in yesteryear. But you should also consider redress from this guy if the block froze up due to no antifreeze, cracking the block. That crosses the border from 'buyer beware' to criminal act.

Head Gasket time. Sorry but that is what you will find the problem is. Pull a plug to find out what side it is on. But since you are going to do one side do them both.

You said:
"I took the motor apart down to head gasket, but didn't actually change the head gasket"

Does that mean that you removed a cylinder head, and then reinstalled it on the existing head gasket?

If that's what you did, then you did a foolish and unacceptable thing!

When an engine with an aluminum cylinder head is adequately overheated (by low/no engine coolant) the aluminum cylinder head warps. That means the head gasket surface is no longer flat, and therefore can't evenly clamp the cylinder head gasket to the engine block deck surface. So the gasket leaks combustion pressure and/or coolant and/or pressurized lubrication system oil. So combustion pressure and/or coolant and/or oil is no longer confined to its proper place. Any of the three can leak into each other's normal place, or out of the engine.

Coolant leaking into the cylinder makes steam, which is what you are seeing.

Take both cylinder heads off and have them checked for flatness at a machine shop.
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If you removed the head and did not install a new head gasket, obviously you made the leak or at least made it worse. Head gaskets are one time use things, along with a lot of the head bolts.