Blown Headgasket?

[turbojimmy]

Hi all,

Ever since I've gotten my truck, it's run pretty rough. I've narrowed it down to the #1 cylinder fouling the plug with oil. Not a lot of oil, but it doesn't take much to foul the plug and lean out the mixture enough that it pings. I'm also missing oil - a quart or so every 5-600 miles. It's not dripping enough to be losing that much, and it doesn't smoke. I noticed yesterday, though, that the antifreeze is thick and oily. There's no antifreeze in the oil, though. The other weird thing is that I can't keep antifreeze in the CAC. I don't know where it goes, but I noticed that there's antifreeze all over the CAC (coming out the cap) AND the heater motor - it's blowing out the recovery tank. It only started doing that when I hooked the overflow tube on the CAC to the overflow tank (like it's supposed to be - it wasn't like that when I got it).

I know the recovery tank shouldn't be pressurized, but I don't know how that's happening. I've had two different CACs on it (thought maybe one was leaking boost into the water) on it. The radiator has the right amount of antifreeze in it, and it seems to be drawing it in as it needs it. I had a T-Bird with similar symptoms that had a blown head gasket, but the radiator would always be bone dry because the head gasket leak was pressurizing the system and blowing all the antifreeze out. I don't see that happening with the Ty, but something funky is going on. When I get on it, I can smell antifreeze - blowing out the CAC and the recovery tank.

Any ideas?

Jim

 

[Guest]

cracked head and or blown head gasket. with the radiator cap off do you see any bubbles? take the plug out and pump air into the cylinder and see if you have any air comming out of the radiator.

 

[Blake]

Do A compression test. If you have two cylinders that are lower than the rest, the head gasket is blown between those two cylinders. You can get a compression tester for like $25.
Blake

 

[turbojimmy]

I guess I should have mentioned that it passed a leakdown and compression test. I had completely forgotten I had done that - I've been messing around with this thing for so long. I guess that rules out a headgasket.

But what could be pressurizing the coolant system? Intake gasket leak - boost (not compression) pressurizing it? It's really wacky. An intake leak would explain the oil, too I suppose.

Thanks for the replies.

Jim

 

[E-Rue]

Ever since I've gotten my truck, it's run pretty rough. I've narrowed it down to the #1 cylinder fouling the plug with oil. Not a lot of oil, but it doesn't take much to foul the plug and lean out the mixture enough that it pings.

my sy used to do this with the number 4 cylinder. passed a compression test too. problem went away when i had mccoys build me a motor. everyone kept telling me it was internal. guess they were right.


e

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<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: e-rue on 2002-01-14 21:10 ]</font>

 

[jwaller]

have you pulled the CAC to see if your getting coolant in from that "Maybe having an internal leak" I've seen a few of them rupture on the inside. are you sure you're vavle stem seals arent going bad...maybe this could explain the oil issue. sounds like your CAC may have an internal leak from the blowing of coolant into the recovery tank...now if you're CAC pump has gone bad OR for sdome reason you're heating the Water in the IC system it WILL send water/antifreeze out and into the tank but surely not very much of it.

 

[turbojimmy]

I've had a couple of different CACs on it - that's what I suspected in the first place. But unless I had two bad ones, that's not it. The pump is new. I'm going to block off the overflow on the CAC and see if the overflow tank puking stops. There's a lot of pressure there to blow coolant past the cap and all over the heater blower.

I think the oil in #1 is probably the valve guides. I'm going to replace the intake gasket and see if that fixes anything. I hafta get my fargin' Buick running first in case the gasket swap goes awry on the Ty.

Thanks,
Jim