Hey All,
I posted a while back about a '94 pickup I bought that had a rust problem around the rear leaf spring hanger. I ended up selling that one at a loss and going out on a search for a clean first gen 4x4 longbed pickup. I found this one in San Diego, flew out, picked it up, and drove it back to NY in about 84 hours door to door (54 hours in motion, average speed of 55mph)
1983, 22R, 5-spd. Now, this truck has no rust, many new mechanical parts, and a complete engine rebuild at 200k (it had 230k now). The truck worked great for the 3000 mile trip back from the West and for the last month as a daily driver... this is until yesterday morning.
I was driving to work (17 degrees over here) and noticed the temp running high... and no heat. Made it in to work... (4 slow miles after I noticed the problem) and looked in the rad... no coolant... checked the dipstick... coolant oil mix.
This is my first major engine failure, so I guess that is some sort of milestone in my life. It appears that the coolant is in the oil. There is no coolant in the recovery tank and no visible coolant in the rad when looking in from the top. I drained a bit out the bottom and it was still green. The dipstick is indicating that the missing coolant is in the oil system because it is reading very high with what appears to be sludgy, cooked, coolant mixed with the oil. The truck was blowing white smoke just before I shut it down.
Anyway, I'm thinking this is something catastrophic since this happened all at once... the truck had been running great with daily driving over the last month... and yesterday morning, something let loose in a hurry... cracked block? cracked head? head gasket? I've also read that it is possible for a loose timing belt to nick the head and allow a small hole to form where coolant can flow down into the oil pan. Could be any of these... so I'm probably going to just get a reman long block and pull the whole engine in the spring. Then I'll tear it down and try to figure out what happened.
Any one have any other ideas or previous experience with a situation like this.
All input appreciated.
I posted a while back about a '94 pickup I bought that had a rust problem around the rear leaf spring hanger. I ended up selling that one at a loss and going out on a search for a clean first gen 4x4 longbed pickup. I found this one in San Diego, flew out, picked it up, and drove it back to NY in about 84 hours door to door (54 hours in motion, average speed of 55mph)
1983, 22R, 5-spd. Now, this truck has no rust, many new mechanical parts, and a complete engine rebuild at 200k (it had 230k now). The truck worked great for the 3000 mile trip back from the West and for the last month as a daily driver... this is until yesterday morning.
I was driving to work (17 degrees over here) and noticed the temp running high... and no heat. Made it in to work... (4 slow miles after I noticed the problem) and looked in the rad... no coolant... checked the dipstick... coolant oil mix.
This is my first major engine failure, so I guess that is some sort of milestone in my life. It appears that the coolant is in the oil. There is no coolant in the recovery tank and no visible coolant in the rad when looking in from the top. I drained a bit out the bottom and it was still green. The dipstick is indicating that the missing coolant is in the oil system because it is reading very high with what appears to be sludgy, cooked, coolant mixed with the oil. The truck was blowing white smoke just before I shut it down.
Anyway, I'm thinking this is something catastrophic since this happened all at once... the truck had been running great with daily driving over the last month... and yesterday morning, something let loose in a hurry... cracked block? cracked head? head gasket? I've also read that it is possible for a loose timing belt to nick the head and allow a small hole to form where coolant can flow down into the oil pan. Could be any of these... so I'm probably going to just get a reman long block and pull the whole engine in the spring. Then I'll tear it down and try to figure out what happened.
Any one have any other ideas or previous experience with a situation like this.
All input appreciated.