Did I blow a head gasket?

Newby here, thanks for keeping this forum alive. Great help for us home repair types!

My wife started our 97 olds 88 and it started blowing white and blue smelly smoke from exhaust. She shut it down and I started it, running rough and belching lots of the smoke. I shut it down and looked under the hood, then went to start again. Cranks and wont run :banghead: . The smell didnt remind me of antifreeze at first, used to the green stuff, but maybe the orange stuff has a different odor? I noticed a wet spot on the driveway at an exhaust connection behind the cat so I looked into the radiator, no fluid. I pulled the 3 spark plugs from the radiator side of engine and cranked, got a little fluid spray coming out of the holes, plugs were wet/oily.

So, based on that info, I suspect the headgasket blew, allowing antifreeze and oil to get into cylinder causing all of the smoke....

Any more ideas? Is cat ruined too? I can turn a wrench okay, but dont really WANT to do it. Any guesses on shop costs?

Sounds like a head gasket to me. The cat can probably be saved since you limited the time you ran it after the problem was identified but keep some money in reserve just in case it won't pass the emissions test. If you take it to a shop you can expect anywhere from 800 to 1000 dollars or more depending on the labor rate. Parts xtra! You can do it for a lot less if you buy a manual, get the proper tools and spend a good 8-10 hours working on it. Probably worth the investment in time vs. dollars. The parts will probably cost you a couple of hundred since you will need new head bolts and gaskets, replace the intake manifold gaskets too. Have the heads checked for warpage and if necessary get them trued up of course there will be a charge for this too. But it will probably save you several hundred dollars by doing everything yourself.

I ended up taking it to the dealership, not the head gasket, but the plastic intake 'thing,' don't remember what they called it, parts $350, labor, $150, fixed the same day. Tech said this is common for the 3800 engine.

Stop, do not pull your heads or even your lower intake manifold. What you have sounds exactly what I had. Also the "stealership" will rip you off on parts you do not need. All you need is a plenem and gasket. and it can be replaced with just a little time and patience.

It is a fairly easy thing to replace. I found one at a Parts Plus I think and it ran around $150 with the gasket and probably around 5-6 hours with basic tools.
Before you start you want to remove all of the spark plugs and crank it over a couple of times to get the antifeeze out of the cylinders.
It will take a while for the white smoke and smell to go away till the antifreeze is burned out of the exhaust.

wilfie27--
thanks for the info but I already got stealershipped! I have to drive to Colorado this this weekend and didnt have the time to do it myself. Yes it was the plenum and after seeing the part that was replaced I figured that I could have done it myself in a few hours, but again, I was stressed about getting out of state and only had a few days to get it done. Thanks again.

what's a plenum?

Intake manifold.

oh i din't know that...