Antifreeze missing, smoking... I'm screwed.

Long story short: 98 K1500, Z71, 5.7L, 117K. I bought it 01/05 - looked good/ran good with no signs of problems or deferred maintenance.

Within 6 months, the tranny went out. Then the truck begins to have a weird problem in that it misses and loses power while under a significant load. I replaced plugs, wires, dist cap, rotor, use gasoline treatment. No luck. I took it to a professional. He said they could only find one problem - the fuel system wasn't delivering enough pressure. I installed a new fuel pump. No luck.

So, I say screw it and put it up for sale. Suddenly the darn thing begins to run great, but it's my 3rd vehicle so I still want to sell it. I have no luck with interested buyers for over 2 months - it sits a significant portion of this time. Then all of a sudden my phone begins to ring off the hook. Sweet! I set a showing with a guy. On my way to meet him (yesterday), the truck begins to massively cut out, I notice I am fogging the neighborhood, and the temp gauge is pegged. :banghead:

There are massive amounts of anti-freeze in the oil. I figure its a blown head gasket. I call around to local mechanics and 1 out of 3 refuses to work on it citing a larger immenient problem that the motor will lock up within 3 months. But, I need to cut my losses and move on. :banghead:

The real question: Is it worth replacing the head gaskets, should I sell as is, or should I look to replace the entire engine.

Please advise. Thanks in advance.

Cheers,
sivadnar

Hey sivadnar, sorry to hear about your truck. I just got rid of my 98 Tahoe for a Buick, but I do miss her. I was just curious if you have nailed down the coolant problem. To the best of my knowledge 350s don't usually have head gasket issues, but I was just wondering. I know that the do have intake gasket issues and it might be something to look into. The other thing that I'm curious of is if everything else is solid, chassis, drivetrain, trans(I know you said it went out), no rust, etc. If so, a motor might be worth looking into, or at least a rebuild. The mechanics won't work on it because of the coolant in the oil. They're thinking that they'll put head gaskets on it and change the oil and you'll be right back saying your engine locked up. Coolant can do major damage in an engine. I would take stock in what you have and try to figure out if it's worth it to you. One thing is for sure, you won't have any trouble finding and engine, new, rm, or used. Let us know what you decide. M

Replace the motor and drive it. You already went through the trouble of putting on another transmission and all the other stuff, by the time you do that everything should be new and reliable hopefully...

Long story short: 98 K1500, Z71, 5.7L, 117K. I bought it 01/05 - looked good/ran good with no signs of problems or deferred maintenance.

Within 6 months, the tranny went out. Then the truck begins to have a weird problem in that it misses and loses power while under a significant load. I replaced plugs, wires, dist cap, rotor, use gasoline treatment. No luck. I took it to a professional. He said they could only find one problem - the fuel system wasn't delivering enough pressure. I installed a new fuel pump. No luck.

So, I say screw it and put it up for sale. Suddenly the darn thing begins to run great, but it's my 3rd vehicle so I still want to sell it. I have no luck with interested buyers for over 2 months - it sits a significant portion of this time. Then all of a sudden my phone begins to ring off the hook. Sweet! I set a showing with a guy. On my way to meet him (yesterday), the truck begins to massively cut out, I notice I am fogging the neighborhood, and the temp gauge is pegged. :banghead:

There are massive amounts of anti-freeze in the oil. I figure its a blown head gasket. I call around to local mechanics and 1 out of 3 refuses to work on it citing a larger immenient problem that the motor will lock up within 3 months. But, I need to cut my losses and move on. :banghead:

The real question: Is it worth replacing the head gaskets, should I sell as is, or should I look to replace the entire engine.

Please advise. Thanks in advance.

Cheers,
sivadnar

Hey Sivadnar,

Before you give your Chevy away. She's worth giving Advance Auto Parts a call about their Remanufactured short blocks. The good thing about trucks is you can do it yourself with a little patients. Set the old engine next to the Reman, switching all parts over and dropping it right back in place. Put your baby back on the road for another 200,000 miles if you take care of your maintenance on time.

The money I would spend on a mechanic. I spent building my own Craftsman Corner. www.craftsman.com (http://www.craftsman.com)
Good Luck GM Brother:wink:

I say put another motor in it as well. You have already spent quite a bit on it.
I have a 95 with a new motor and it is great. It only took one long weekend for me to pull the old and put in a new.

Before you go and spend a couple grand on a new motor, I would look into the intake gasket like mtmaurer8ooo said. Head gasket failures are uncommon on these engines but intake gasket failures are not. If it is the culprit replace it, change your oil and you might be surprised how resilient your engine is. As for the fuel pressure issues, try a fuel pressure regulator. Please don't be one of those people who sells a pile of junk to an unsuspecting buyer.

Before you go and spend a couple grand on a new motor, I would look into the intake gasket like mtmaurer8ooo said. Head gasket failures are uncommon on these engines but intake gasket failures are not. If it is the culprit replace it, change your oil and you might be surprised how resilient your engine is. As for the fuel pressure issues, try a fuel pressure regulator. Please don't be one of those people who sells a pile of junk to an unsuspecting buyer.

That's Good Information.:thumbsup:

Blown head gaskets don't usually cause antifreeze in oil problems. usually they blow out between cylinders. Anyway, I would suspect the intake manifold gaskets as they are a known weak spot on these engines. I doubt that enough antifreeze contaminated the oil for a long enough length to damage the engine. When you have the intake off pour a few quarts of automatic transmission oil (its a good cleaner) into the lifter area with the drain plug out to flush the engine a bit.Change the oil and filter during the repair, and take it for a drive of about 10 miles. Then change the oil and filter again and you should be ok.

Blown head gaskets don't usually cause antifreeze in oil problems. usually they blow out between cylinders. Anyway, I would suspect the intake manifold gaskets as they are a known weak spot on these engines. I doubt that enough antifreeze contaminated the oil for a long enough length to damage the engine. When you have the intake off pour a few quarts of automatic transmission oil (its a good cleaner) into the lifter area with the drain plug out to flush the engine a bit.Change the oil and filter during the repair, and take it for a drive of about 10 miles. Then change the oil and filter again and you should be ok.


Good Food For Thought. :thumbsup:

I would replace the head gaskets and intake gaskets, just get a headset. If you didn't run it to long this way there shoudn't be any problems with the rest of the motor. Drain the motor, replace the filter and add some Motor Flush, follow the directions on the bottle, run for 5 min. then change the oil. BTW, a head gasket will dump coolant in to the engine oil, it just depends on how it blows. To find out where exactly the problem is you can take your truck to a mechanic and have them do a leak down test. Hope this helps.

i agree, my neighbors 350 had a head gasket go bad and had coolant in the oil, and you should have seen the white smoke lol. he changed the head gaskets, cleaned up the motor and changed out the oil, and drove it. Its still going strong now and the cam sounds good that he put in it too lol.

Disconnect the head pipes, push the pipes out of the way and crank up the engine. See if the vapor blows out of just one side. (If you have true duals you can just see which side is blowing vapors.) If it does, pull the intake and look for any sign of leaks. If it all looks good, pull the head that is on the side that had the vapor coming out. I've seen two 350's ('81 and '94) blow head gaskets. Both engines weren't driven once the leak was noticed ('94 blew a fog trail, the '81 just dumped coolant into the oil.) We put new gaskets on both engines and they are still running strong today. I've known several people to blow head gaskets but have never heard of any personally having the engine freeze up after replacing the gaskets. Drain the oil, fix it, refill with oil. Run the engine for 10 minutes. Drain the oil and refill. Drive 500 miles and change it again.

For those of you anxiously awaiting more ugly details of my disaster...

I opted to fix the problem. It turned out to be a blown intake gasket and head gasket. Now, the engine is completly reassembled and running great until... hydrolock.

Pull it apart again... coolant in the #1 cylinder. Repeat step 1 after afirming there are no cracked heads, etc. Reassemble... repeat step 2... coolant in the #1 cylinder.

I hate this f-ing truck. Karma has a mad-on for me.

Thanks for the advice. I'll keep you posted on my debacle.
Sivadnar

The 350 vortecs do not have headgasket problems,they have the intake gasket problems.Stay away from a long and short block from advanced and go with a Jasper.Jasper has the best warrenty out there.With recon which Advance sell,Recon's warrenty sucks.The ones from advanced have the really cheap bearings,etc and Jasper has the high quality parts from Federal Mogal,Fel Pro and are updated.The ones from Advanced,you have to take to a certain shop for the warrenty work.