MG Car Repair: overheating mg midget, head gasket, cylinder compression

Question
Thanks Brian in advance with helping me and my problem.

Was in the mountains of NC and my midget really over heated, stopped , cooled it off, added water, took the T-stat out , thought it may have stuck, just before getting it home it over heated again , really hot before I stopped, saw a puff of white smoke come out the exhaust , stopped the car , let it set over night, thought I had blown a head gasket ,had head shaved, magniufluxed, all well, replaced head gasket. still having a lot of smoke, sometime its white , sometimes its blue, could I have damaged something else ? Any ideas ?

Thanks again

Answer
Steve-
You are right to think that white (smoke) coming out of the exhaust is usually steam - most likely from a bad head gasket, but could be a cracked head or block - though those are much less likely. I would do a few things. First, find out why it's overheating. Is the radiator good? How is the engine ignition timing? Don't think you damaged anything else, but something caused your problem in the first place so we need to find it. I would next have a cylinder compression check done to see if the head gasket is still the problem. Just because it was replaced and the head shaved, doesn't mean it was done right. Was the head re-torqued after the new gasket was installed after 20-50 miles? Water pump working well, I'll assume as you didn't say it was leaking. Is the fan belt tensioned properly?  

Hope this helps get you started on a fix. Let me know.
Brian