i have been finding brown sludge in radiator and overflow bottle, truck is 94 burban with 350, 180,000 and the oil cooler in the radiator. no coolant in oil pan. i've asked my buddys and have gotten the oh you blew a head gasket. but i dont think so. i think its the radiator, so how about it guys anyone got an ideas. dont want to pull the heads off to find out it was the radiator. going to remove the oil cooler from engine and flush coolant and try that to see if it is the radiator but anyone got any better ideas?

Couple questions.Do you use dex-cool for the coolant?Was the level in the rad low when you opened the rad cap?If yes to both questions then you may have encountered the dex-cool sludge.There is a large controversy on how bad dex-cool is for the cooling system.You will probably find posts about this issue.I hope that you don't have this problem,but you may want to look into this.
chuck's

dexcool flushed out and replaced long ago, checked radiator oil cooler not leaking so going to rip head gaskets off, wish i didn't have to but its the only way oil can be getting in antifreeze.

My intake gaskets were leaking on my 97 Suburban and turned the oil into a milkshake. Those were much easier than head gaskets.

my oil is fine its just in the antifreeze in the radiator i have the brown sludge.

wow dont pull of the heads for dirty anti-freeze. Do some tests first, like a rad pressure test, or a combustion pressure rad test

removed oil cooler lines from radiater, left radater holes for cooling lines open and ran truck to see if coolant would leak out of oil cooler holes, nothing. no i havent done comprestion test yet, but just to satifiy you and myself, and my buddy who says its the head gasket i will before pulling heads. belive me i don't want to pull heads.

man i really hope u did not replace dex-cool w/the green stuff and if u replaced with dex-cool did u change the rad cap they leak air and the dex reacts and changes color

yes i replace with prestone, thats all i have ever used for 35 years in anything i have ever owned.

pulled intake today, replaced heater spout on rear of intake man what a pain in the ass, it had cracked right where it went in the intake, had to drill out threads that were left on the inside of the intake then retap intake for new spout. then went on to the heads , the head gasket was gone and one exhast manifold bold had been broken for some time by previous owner or someone else who had remove manifolds. after we got the heads off we drilled out the broken bolt and used on eazy out and just a little heat to remove broken bolt. other than those minor problems it was uneventfull. oh ya you need a special tool to remove the pully off the power stearing pump. i will admit it took myself and another experienced mechanic the better part of three days, between work and running for parts. so if you intend on doing this yourself its not for the faint of heart or weekend wrench turner, but if you must do it yourself i suggest you get access to a set of torches, specal tools, ( you can rent or borrow pump pully puller, taps drills and eazy outs may be nesissary. so good luck boys.
it is done tho and just fired her up tonight with just one problem, looking into that tomorrow.
it has no power runs like a dog, we didn't set the timeing after puting dist. back in, couldn't find the wire to unplug to reset computer, anyone know where it is? its not under the hood.

trucks fine now $200 later in parts timing is fine, got it set today all i need to do is flush and refill system now. buddy recomended to change cap to a 5 lb pressure cap to prevent haveing to change head gasket again, lower pressure less chance of blowing gasket makes sence to me.