victory

hello ,
i have my 1973 98 with a 455 on it , the car blown a head gasket ,"water mix with oil in the radiator" , it has a new radiator ,water pump,fan clutch ,hoses,heavy duty coolant and the thermostat was removed about a year ago ,any idea why this happened?

also the car start right away but after 30 second make a loud sound ,it is possible that i lost the rod bearings because of the over heating ?

thank you

MDchanic

I may perhaps not be following your post properly, but it sounds as though you've answered your own question.

You say that your engine overheated.

Overheating is a common cause of head gasket failure.

Was your engine modified?
What type of head gasket was in it?
Were the block and heads machined?
How hot did it get when it overheated?
How many miles were on it?
How had it been running before it overheated?
What sort of "loud sound" does the engine make thirty seconds after you start it?

Welcome.

- Eric

victory

the engine is original ,original head gasket ,no modification ,i drove the car 50 miles and i stopped , i heard a water noise and i notice the coolant dripping from the tank overflow,the car has only 119000 original miles , got it from the first owner.
it has been running fine other than the iddle was a little funny.
sorry i cannot describe the noise properly but in go up and down with the engine rpm all i have to do is stop the engine let it stand for few minutes and start it again the motor will be quiet but 30 second later the noise start again , since the oil is mix with the some water that would give me low oil pressure??

Highwayman

My 2 cents...


Stop running the engine. If the oil/water mix hasn't taken out the bearings yet, it soon will. Especially if the water has antifreeze in it.

victory

thank you for the advise, i did not drive the car as soon as the car overheated i stop it and had it tow to my house.

Intragration

How were you driving the car when it overheated? Highway sustained high speed? Local stop and go? Is there a spring in the lower radiator hose to prevent it from collapsing? There's supposed to be. If it's not there, it's possible for the hose to collapse under high-speed driving and severely limit coolant flow.

victory

just get of the freeway ,drive let than a 1/2 miles in the city .nothing told me i was overheating over than the overflow hose dripping coolant , will check the radiator hose tomorrow.
thank you for the input.

Intragration

Check the hose and let us know. My guess is there's no spring. The car's 40 years old, it's very possible that the coolant temp sensor was bad or the bulb was burned out. This is why you should always always run a temperature and oil pressure gauge.

MDchanic

How long did this car sit before you got it?

You know that water came out the overflow, how do you know that it overheated.
Does it have a temperature gauge, or just a light?
Did the light go on?

- Eric

Oldsguy

Moving thread to big block forum. Good luck solving your problem.

oldcutlass

The car is 39 years old, head gaskets do not last forever. The noise could also be a lifter or valvetrain issue. Your choice now would be to find your noise, and do at least a valve job and timing chain if it was not replaced with the water pump.

If the noise is actually a rod bearing then you have a decision to make on what direction to proceed next.

64Rocket

the factory steel shim head gaskets tend to rust out from being 39 years old.

Gene

victory

no light on ,no temperature gauge , the overflow was dumping coolant and i find water mix with oil in the radiator .so i have to assume i overheated.
thank you for your comment.

MDchanic

No, you have to assume you blew a head gasket.

You have no evidence that it overheated.

- Eric

victory

so you thing that i could have blew a head gasket but did not overheat , how can it happened ?

victory

and what about the loud tapping noise after 30 second and the oil mix with coolant in the radiator ?

Rickman48

What came first - - - - - - - ??
If you just bought the car, you may find a can of Vasoline in the trunk!!
Never heard of a shim gasket 'rusting out' while compressed.
Usually, water out of the overflow will designate overheating!
Water in the oil could be a bad manifold gasket!
If it ran, could look for bubbles in the radiator!
Low oil pressure could be many things!
Turn the ign. switch on - does the 'temp' light come on? If not, could be unplugged!
Where are you - maybe someone local could help you out??

victory

hello rickman48
as i describe it before the car was running fine , i stopped at my friend house and notice the coolant dripping from the overflow and the tank full . wait until the car cool off and then started it ,after maybe 45 second / 1 minute i heard a loud taping in the motor ,stopped the car and notice the coolant mix with some oil /grey/white.
started the car ,the loud tapping come back again .
i then tow the car to my house.
so ,not sure what is the issue.

MDchanic

We've been talking about how it might have happened.
It's a 39 year old car. Things break.

And, in spite of what Rickman's experience has been, I have seen a blown (perhaps "rusted" isn't the right word, but it was definitely corroded) original shim head gasket on a high-mile, stock, low-compression 350.

I don't know what about the tapping noise.
Tapping noises from the top of the engine are usually valve lifters, or loose rockers or rocker pivots.
Take off the valve covers and look.

There are a number of places that oil could be coming from to get into the coolant.
A blown head gasket is one of them.
A bad intake manifold gasket may be another.
Only one way to find out.

Excellent question.

Or at least you'd better hope there's one there!

As I said above, I have. Honest.

It may indicate overheating.
Or it may indicate a blown head gasket without overheating.
Or maybe just a bad radiator cap and / or overfilled radiator.
Without any evidence of overheating (light on, gauge reading, engine just felt really hot when he opened the hood...), I'm putting it lower on my list.

Agree with all.
Bubbles in the radiator, or increased radiator pressure when running (before it warms up) indicate a blown head gasket.

We're all trying to help you with that.

Why not do a compression test and a leakdown test and get back to us with the results so we can see if you've even got a blown head gasket, and then we can have some idea what we're helping you with.

Also, why not pull the valve covers and see what's going on in there. If it looks good, run the engine and see if you can find a noisy rocker.

- Eric

victory

ok ,guy ,i will do the test in a few days a get back to you.
thank you for your help.!

Tedd Thompson

If you have water in the oil change the oil before you run that engine any longer or you will have a bearing problems.You need to find out why it's getting in there but if you run that engine very long it will be toast....Tedd

oldcutlass

If there is water in the oil there is no need to change the oil and continue running the engine. It will need to have the intake and heads removed to find where the water is coming from. Any further operation of the engine will lead to further problems.

Oil in the water, can be a trans leak through the trans cooler into the radiator. Check the fluid level in the trans and any signs of water. Look for signs on the spark plugs.

Jetstar 88

You can blow a head gasket without overheating the car. An old engine, with head bolts out of torque spec, is very susceptible to this, especially if run hard. You'll need to find where the oil and water are mixing and put an end to this, or else, bearing failure is certain.
I had oil and water mixing in my old 330, but that was due to a thrown rod taking a chunk out of the cylinder wall and exposing the water jacket. that was a fun engine to tear down...

TSMITH75

you could check to see witch side head gasket is leaking by taking the belt off the water pump taking the water neck and thermostat out (while engine is warm not hot)fill the intake full of water where the thermostat goes start the car back up and see witch side the bubbles come from if it was just over heating but sence there is oil water mix i'm with the rest of the guys and would say a intake and head gasket change is in order and would have a machine shop check the heads for cracks