silver240esex

Hey everyone. I guess I should start from the beginning! My car is in the hospital right now due to what I believe is a blown head gasket. This is what happened.

I was on my way back to work from my lunch break and I noticed some smoke coming from my engine. As soon as I got to the parking lot I checked under the hood and noticed that oil was leaking from somewhere and it was all over the place, mostly below the water pump. After work when I took a look at it at home I noticed that oil was leaking from the crank pulley so I changed the oil seal. I let the car idle for about fifteen minutes, periodically racing the engine to see if oil still leaked....and nothing. No oil! I even took her around the block a few times and she felt good. I was confident that I had fixed the problem so I went over to my girlfriends' house. On the way back home my car started making a wierd noise. It sounded as if though something was loose on the engine as I heard loud knocking. I checked once again under the hood and I was like "WTF?" The wire from the ignition coil to the distributor was off and I know that no one messed with my car. I put it back and off I went because my car was running ok.

My GF lives about 20 minutes from my house on the street but only after about 5 minutes of driving my engine started to smoke again. Sh*t! It was about 1:00am Friday night/Saturday morning and there was no way I was going to stop at that time on the streets of South Central Los Angeles! I guess my car had another idea because she turned off on me! I had to push my car onto a small residential street and checked under the hood. No help from the street lights as I could barely see the engine. I went back into my car and waited about 5 minutes before I tried to start it again. Luckily she started and off I went. I couldn't let the revs fall too low or she would turn off so I kept it above idle. When I got home I popped the hood and wooosh! Lots of smoke. I let it cool down and went to sleep.

The next morning I checked my car and it had no water. Bone dry. I added water and my car started up ok. I found the source of my troubles in the bypass hose behind the intake manifold and replaced it. This hose was a B!tch to change but once again I was happy. I cooked the engine oil and it smelled so bad. Just the day before I changed the oil because of that previous oil seal leak and it was now black. This worried me but with new oil I figured I'd be ok. I started the car and everything seemed fine until after about 10 minutes of driving. I noticed white smoke coming out of my exhaust. Not just a little but a lot, then after about 5 minutes of idling it calmed down a bit but not completely. I tried the head gasket test with the radiator cap off and my water shot straight out. Damn! It must be my head gasket.

I took off the head today (I didn't even go to work to tend to my baby) but I noticed the camshafts had this black coating of what I believe is burnt oil. Oh, and my car must have drank a milkshake when I wasn't looking because that's how my new oil looks! LOL. I hope I don't have a cracked head but I'm taking it to a shop tomorrow to have it checked. Do you guys think my head is cracked? And about the cams (and pretty much everything else under the cylinder head cover), may my cams be bad or can I just clean them off? And if so can I use industrial strength degreaser? I'm cleaning my cylinder cover with degreaser because it was coated with that milkshake oil. I'm planning to also take the pan out and clean that as well because I'm sure it's milkshake infested too. Is there a way I can rid the block of that nasty oil? What other things should I check for? My cylinder walls also had moisture in them and a brownish residue on the cylinder walls that seemed to flow from the top down, which makes me think that the piston rings are ok. I was also planning to swap motors to a SR20 Black Top but not until early next year. Should I consider doing the swap now? I need advice as this is my first time working on a KA. Thank you all!!

wikd240

the milkshake stuff is the water mixed with the oil... it can be cleaned off rather easy with a can of carb/choke cleaner or brake cleaner... same with the oil pan cams and all of the other parts that are on or in the motor...

as far as all of the black gummy like stuff all over everything... this is oil sludge... it is common in motors that have not been well maintained... it will build up over time no matter what you do to the motor unless you use products like engine purge or do the diesel in the oil trick... when you get your head back it should be all clean and pretty... ready to be reinstalled... but clean everything else that you are putting back into the motor... if you are going to remove the oil pan also inspect the bearings as antifreeze in the oil will distroy a set in no time...

so long as the head checks out fine i would put it back together and see how it does... fresh oil and a change 100 miles after the car is back together and then another 250 after that shoukld have it pretty well cleaned out...

silver240esex

Thanks for the advice. I took the rest of the week off from work just to work on my car so I hope that it's enough time. I just took the head in today. Hopefully it won't take too long to machine and rebuild but in the meantime I'm going to clean the engine bay and use the carb/choke cleaner to clean the other parts of my engine that have been coated with the contaminated oil.

Quick question. What is the diesel in the oil trick? I've read lots of threads here but I haven't come across that. How do I do it?

wikd240

i have never seen it on this message board... but what it is basically is you add a quart of diesel fuel to your oil run the motor for about 20 min then drain the oil and fill with fresh oil... the diesel fuel will clean the oil passages and return gallys of your motor... removes the brownish varnish that is coating most of the parts in your motor...

you just hve to make sure that during the time that the motor is running that it does not begin to overheat or the oil light does not come on... all of the sludge is going into your oil pan and it would be bad if it was allowed to suck back up into the oil pump pick up tube....

i have done this millions of times to all kinds of motors and have only had the oil light come on one time... but it sure cleans the hell out of the inside of the motor...

silver240esex

Thanks. I will do that as soon as my engine is built back up! I'll let you know how it went.