gotime242

Hello all,

I let my truck sit for a week, went to start it...took forever to start, then shortly after started having issues. Overall bad performance, losing coolant, hearing coolant bubbling in the radiator / having only steam pore out overflow. *Some* white smoke on startup out of pipe, but cant remember if it always did that / was normal. Oil cap milky.

So i started reading on here and pulled the valve cover to take a look at the timing chain guide...and unfortunately i think it is still there. However i want to be real sure what im looking at so see if you can see it in the picture.

I also did a comp test, but it wasn't giving me good readings. It would say 60, then i would do it again and say 90, then 160. (Engine warm). But after i did them over and over the best i got was 90, 160, 160, 160.

So now im not quite sure what to do. The engine has approx 200k miles on it. Im considering replacing the entire long block, since i would hate to do all this work and just have something else go on it.

Here is the picture, there are some gouges but the owner said he had this issue before and it was fixed. It seems the plastic guide remains.

Sensei

You're first paragraph said it all. Blown head gasket. With the miles on the engine the smart choice would be to rebuild. Replacing the long block is another option. Either way you will end up with a fresh motor, unless you go used....

7moore7

I'm having very similar issues to this; disappearing coolant, some oil loss and very murky oil. Occasional smoke on startup.

From what I read replacing the head gasket is involved but doable (half a day's job?). Is there anything else I should look for or replace while I'm in there? What is involved in a rebuild? The motor was reportedly rebuilt about 5k miles ago, but if the rest of the truck is any indicator, he didn't know what he was doing. Sorry I don't have much time to search this stuff, and thanks for any help...