head gasket

I just noticed there is a milky foam in my antifreeze. I figure this is the head gasket. Does anyone know how long you can run this without repairing it before it dies on you? Don't have the money to fix it or buy another car. Please help.

Either your head gasket or more likely the intake gasket. Either case running it as is, is not good. How does your oil look, if it has anitfreeze in it then your engine will be trashed soon. It's not going to fix itself and there is no happy ending. If its just in your antifreeze, you may be able to drive but overheating may become a problem. If it were my car, I would not drive it.

I kind of figured that it was junk. Thanks for the info. The oil looks fine by the way.

I had a Head Gasket blow at about 100K Mi on my 98 Silhouette. It was a sudden event, the engine overheated, there was bubbles coming out of the over flow tube and little puffs of steam out of the exhaust pipe. I did have water in the oil (looks like dirty mayo). I shut it down and had it towed home.
I took it to the dealer for an evaluation and was told that the engine was fried, I didn't believe them, and asked to see the engine. There was no ridging in the cylinders, one cylinder had some burned oil spots on the cyl walls but no big deal. I instructed them to just put new gaskets on it, and send it home. They got indignent and said they couldn't warrantee the engine, and about 5000 miles later I found out why.
We were on a family vacation about 300 Mi from home when it started overheating again, and I saw small bubbles in the recovery tank but no water in the oil. I put two tubes of Alumaseal in the radiator and went thur several heat up cool down cycles. That fixed the problem until I got home and could change the gasket myself.
What I found was that the dealer had left one of the head bolts just finger tight, and that is where the leak (cylinder to water jacket) had started. If you need to do it yourself, it's not a bad job if you know the tricks, like how to rock the engine forward and where the hidden bolt is.
If your leak isn't too bad try some Alumaseal. If its a cyl to water jacket leak you won't get water in the oil unless there's a lot of water and it leaks past the rings, then your hosed.
If your going to try the leak stop, remember that there's a lot more pressure in the combustion chamber than in the cooling system so the leak stop won't work while the engine is running. The idea is to have 15 PSI in the cooling system and 0 in the cylinder, this way the small aluminum flakes can flow into the hole and stop it up. Start, warm the engine to pressurize the cooling system and mix the Alumaseal, then shut it down for 30 minutes, do this repeatedly. Restarting the engine may blow some of the plug out, but over time it works (sometimes). Idle is better than driving during this phase since the combustion pressures will be lower until the plug forms.
This has worked for me a couple times on various cars, to buy me time for it to warm up in the spring. Again, it's not a bad job, the gaskets are about $15 each which is a lot less than the $1800 I spent at the dealer for a crappy job or the $5K they wanted for a new engine on a van with 100K Mi on it. If you want to try it yourself let me know, I'll tell you what I know.
See ya
94

Thanks for the information 94Jimmy. I have a 1998 Olds Silhouette, which has foamy oil and coolant. I plan on replacing the head gasket myself and am interested in your "tips".
woodster54

Woodster
It's not much harder than any other head gasket, except one of the heads is tucked under the dash. The trick is to rotate the engine forward which is not much of a problem, and to take a lot of pictures which will help when you can't remember where something goes or how it goes together. Also get the Haynes manual for the van, it's well worth the $20.
Then:
A. Take the upper and lower radiator hoses off, then remove the two front engine mount/stabilizers retaining one of the bolts. Using two small (1 inch) pullies a single and a double, a piece of 1/4" non-streachable rope make a block an tackle set up attached to the lifting eye of the engine. Pull the rope tight rotating the engine forward to allow you to get at the back of the engine then tie the rope to the bolt you retained from the engine mount, and that is that for rotating the engine. Actually you will rotate and relax the engine position several times depending on what your doing and where you have to get to.
B. Find the hidden bolt, this is always a game that has to be played when doing any automotive work, but this one is really hidden and none of the books tell you where it is. There is a cast iron bracket which hangs over a pin that is part of the left forward most head bolt. You can't remove the head bolt until you remove the bracket, you can't remove the bracket until you find the third bolt holding it on, which is behind and underneath the A/C Pump. The pump is held on with two or three bolts which you can feel but not see, make sure you get the mounting bolts, not the coolent line, (hint, if you hear a hissing sound and it gets really cold thats a coolent line). Tie the pump up so it doesen't hang by its hoses then remove the hidden bolt and everything else should be a snap.
Actually these are the only tricks, there's lots more but it's just R&R (remove and replace). None of the electrical lines use the same plug so that shouldn't be confusing, but mark everything with masking tape and a marker just to be safe. Wash the engine with a good engine cleaner before you start and wear gloves nitrile and or mechanics gloves. It'll save your hands and allow you to clean up quickly when you want to mark something or take pictures.
While your at it have the heads checked for warpage, think about having the valves ground and the guides replaced and replace the spark plugs and O2 sensor since you'll have to go through this again to get at those.
If you want more info, this probably isn't the forum for a one on one conversation, get me your email address and we can talk that way.

See ya and good luck
94