Hopefully my head isn't warped.

So yesterday around lunch time I get in my car to go to lunch. I'm pulling out of the parking lot and I start to smell coolant, I looked at my tmp gauge it was looking good. So on the drive to and from the food joint I still smell the coolant, and my gauge still reads fine. So I get back to work and the smell is stronger than ever. I want to get under the hood and make sure my car is ok but because my boos in on my ass about finishing a large project, I go back to work immedeatley (spelling.) So I don't realy smell anything when I'm leaving the parking lot to go home. But on a 20mi stretch home, I'm doing about 80mph at about 3.5k rmps for a good 10 minutes. So I pull up to the first red light, and then Click! My oil pressure light comes on and the whole car shuts down! White smoke is blowing from underneath the hood and my car won't turn anymore so I can edge over to an empty lot. So, the big question is, Did my car overheat when I downshifted at the light to brake with my engine? Or did my car overheat while I was running at 85mph and it was just waiting to come to a stop? And do you guys think my head is warped?



Lazy Notes:
Car smelled like collant all day
Drove home about 80mph for about 12min, came to a light and car shut itself off w/ white smoke under hood
Would not start up, had to push into vacant lot
What's the best/worst scenarios for this situation?

PS Haven't gone to see it yet, but I will when I get out of work today.

1) Why engine brake? Engines are expensive... brakes are cheap.



So it smells like coolant but your oil pressure light came on? Check your coolant levels and your oil levels. Change your oil and see if there's coolant mixed in with the oil. Sounds like you may have a leak there. Worst case would be a blown ring. Any leaks under the car?

The only real way to warp a head is to run it overheated for a while, like a long while. I ran my new head in the red for awhile numerous time (don't ask) and it's still good.

Well, the oil level was good before all this happened. My initial guess would be the water pump gone bad causing shit to go wrong. But I don't think that is what it was because I smelled the cooland well before I overheated. So I glanced at my engine bay for about a minute and couldn't find a leak anywhere. Then again, the engine had just overheated so any fluid present would have evaporated.

I didn't notice any leaks before, never had a problem with overheating. Where should I start looking?

Check the oil and coolant. If they mixed; head gasket.

The oil light is just a pressure switch. When the oil pressure gets below 5psi the light comes on. When the light comes on its usually to late and the motor is already gone. Check oil and drain, look for metal.

Sorry to hear this but its not looking good man.

Ok, is it going to be easy to see if the coolant is mixed with the oil? When I pull the dipstick out, will it stain a paper towel with the coolant color? I will use a strainer to see if I have metal in my oil when I drain it. I'm going to check it out in an hour when I leave work.

It will look like a milkshake.

To look for lots of metal in the oil/coolant concoction after it has drained take a magnet through the liquid and see what you pull out. I would use one of those extend able long reach magnets.

Hope everything works out so it doesn't kill your wallet, especially since not everyone has the money just sitting around for an engine. Good luck dude.

Thanks guys, so I went to check on my car yesterday. System was dry of coolant, I opened the drain on the radiator and nothing. I checked the oil and it seemed to be at a correct level. But check this out, before this happened, my oil was very dark because it was time for me to change it. After my car overheated, the oil looks as if it were new, very clear. another thing, it doesn't smell like oil anymore, it smells like paint. WTF???

I tried to crank it up but it just won't. Compression test?

Drain tha thing. Does sound like a popped head gasket at best.

I will, as soon as I get home from work taoday my brother is towing it to his house so I can work on it. The blown head gasket would cause it not to start right?

A blown headgasket would cause you to loose compression so the may or may not run. Depends on how bad its leaking.

This blows ass, I have to read up on the FAQs cause I haveen't done a compression check before. I'll try and do that tonight, if not by friday night I should be posting up the numbers.

You should deliver the car up here and we can tear it apart. It's not hard, but can be a pain if you've never done it before. Good luck on numbers. Poor 420a.

Yeah, I would have it towed and with me still in it, lol. No, but really I've een wanting to pverhaul my engine anyway. Too bad it happened when finances aren't doing to well.

Too bad it happened when finances aren't doing to well.

Life!
:popcorn:

Join the club. At least mine was still driveable

Well I'm still at work, so its not gonna be till tomorow that I'll get some info. My car is sitting in a vacant lot, I thought I saw the oil on the dipstick really high. I didn't notice a milkshake color to it, though I have to still drain the oil tomorow.:banghead:

Do you have another car you can drive??

Did you piss someone off lately and they might have phucked with your car? Sounds fishy to me.

Yes I'm driving my parent's expedition. I don't know of anyone being mad at me, though its a possibility. So obviously my car isn't going to be at operating temparautre when I do it. Can I still get an accurate read when I do my comp test?

it will be about 10-20psi low but if the motor is messed up you will be able to tell it. Make sure you do it at WOT.

Make sure you do it at WOT.

And don't forget to disconnect power to the fuel pump before! :p

Ok, so I towed the car home and was very upset at what I found. I was imagining a small crack caused a leak and lost my collant that way. So I proceed to put some fluid in the system and then splash! All my f*cking fluid spills all over the driveway. So I look down an my bottom radiator hose is disconnected. WTF??? I ran 85mph with no radiator hose attached? I don't think I need a pressure gauge to figure out that I'm fucked! So thats it for me, I can't keep this up. I need the money I had saved up to use as a down payment for a new car. The 2G has to sadly go, damn it!

Replace the hose. That's an easy fix. I sprung a coolant leak this weekend on the expressway and still ran cool with almost no coolant until I got off the expressway. Then she steamed and temp went up. But you may still be good though. Fix it, fill her with water and see what happens.

I will do it when I get home. Damn, I hope thats all it is.

You can have damage, but you were cruising and it was fine and didn't do anything (shut off) until you came to a stop. You should be fine. But always expect the worse. Have you tried starting it since then?

But remember, if you smell coolant, oil or gas... you always check on that shit. Hell I smell anything at all and I pull over and check.

No it didn't shut off till I got to a stop. It'll crank but it won't come on. Ignition maybe? I'm going over tonight with a pressure gauge and a multimeter to check both, compression and ignition. I'm frossing my fingers.

So last night i was going to start the process of removing the engine. I was going to loosen things off to make it easier to remove the engine on thursday. I pull the spark plugs, and shake them a bit, and its like a water fall. The f*cking things are soaked in water! So there is no question the gaslet was blown. What the hell happened to pistons when coolant rushed in there? My pistons are probably no good either.

It might have hydrolocked your motor.

Head was ok after I pulled it off. My pistons had a pool of coolant in them. The head gasket was toasted and my oil looked like chocolate milk. So I replaced the gasket and cleaned everything up and put that bad boy together. Ran fine, except for when slowing down, my rpms would shoot up to 2k before idling. Thanks to Jason for helping out, props man.

No problem man, I would do a compression test just to see if any damaged happened to the rings.