351w potential blown headgasket...?

[sallystrothers]

3 weeks ago I went for a 10 min drive in the crisp winter air and the car seemed to be running fine but about 1 minute before I got to my house I noticed the engine temp spiking as I was stopped. It quickly rose to about 250°F for about 10 seconds but as I began moving again it came back down and then I shut the car off 1 minute later. When I opened up the hood I found the radiator fan had become disconnected.

The problem was today when I started the car up after having sat for so long I immediately noticed some clatter coming from the head(s). I shut the car off and checked the oil and it looked milky on the edges of the dip stick but normal in the center of the dipstick. I didn't smell or see any coolant coming out of the exhaust. I drained the oil and it actually looked ok but there did seem to be a very small amount of either coolant or water in the oil.

I pulled the spark plugs out and they all looked good (but if I did blow the HG the car wouldn't have ran for long enough to have done significant damage. Compression was 175, 170, 185, 175, 170, 175, 185, 175 and the compression gauge was not in the best condition.

Do you think the variation in the compression #s is acceptable? Is it likely I blew the headgasket from the overheat? What could possibly have happened to let a small amount of coolant into the oil? Any other tests I should perform? I was going to fill it back up with oil and see if itis better. The engine has about 500 miles on it.

 

[86bluecobra]

sounds odd. What temp gauge do you have? Maybe a bit of air in the coolant system caused the spike. I would change the oil burp the cooling system and monitor the oil.

 

[2002BLGT]

you can get water in the oil from a blown intake gasket too , if the compression is good like you say then I would maybe just pull the intake first

 

[sallystrothers]

Think I pinpointed it. This morning as I was getting ready for work I inspected the old oil sitting in the drain pan and the viscosity was very light and it smelled strongly of gasoline. Probably from sitting for 3 weeks and not being ran it drained out of the heads and left them dry due to the low viscosity. Probably explains the foamy multiphase grime on the dipstick, must have been the paraffins not fully dissolving in the oil or something. I put new oil in and it is all good. Hope I don't have a leaky needle valve in the carb or something, well at least that's a lot easier the headgaskets. Thx

 

[warriorpluto]

well i had a blown head gasket on a v6 camaro with the same problem like you were experiencing. i just used a product called block seal and i havent had problems since. my oil was milky but not that much. but now its not at all. ran the block seal and changed the oil. i guess it blew just a little bit to a point where block seal could repair it. ive raced and ran that thing up and down the highway and everything is still good. so just in case i would run that block seal in there.