93 5.2 wount run smooth

coming home the other day i felt what seemd to be a little loss of power
then very faintly i heard a tickin sound ,, not a strong prounced metal on metal , but just enough to get my hopes of making it 300k miles on a 240k motor seem to be in the red ,,,anyhow i was 4 miles from home , it was cold , so i dint want to walk , before i got this all figured out in my mind ,, she died . had to let her set for a few ,, the very reluctanly she fired back up , now running horrible , 2 more miles to go ,,, so a few more times she died , hard to keep running ,,, ok shes home ,,, had to crank and crank and hold the pedal tyo ther floor to gether to start,, then have to verrrrrrry carfulllly , let up on the pedal get it to idel without stalling ,, ohh about forgot ,, when i open the hood anti frezz , was pretty much displayed all over ,, ... ill let u guys chimer in then ill go on ,,, with my question and inquire e ,,, money is tight so this a a doer your self project ,,, iam thinkin head gaskets or heads yet ther is no water in the oil even after having gottin it to run more than 20 mins

sounds like your burnin the antifreeze. these do have a crank sensor that goes bad and also a throttle position sensor on the side of the throttle body that cause rough idle. my dokota has 182000 and still goin good exept the tranny workin on that one though

During all this what was your temp. gage reading ?

And where did all the coolant come from, hose, radiator, cap, etc. ?

While you had it running did you hear any knocking noise from the engine ?