was forced to drive 50 miles with a blown head gasket
01-05-2009, 06:25 PM
#1
was forced to drive 50 miles with a blown head gasket i was driving from san antoinio to san diego, and about 50 miles out of san diego i';m going up and down mountains kind of playing around and pushing the car a little too much considering i just drove 15 hours straight. so i start getting a missfire. my first thought was i bent one of my stock pushrods.(i know. i know). but then it started getting hot. i was like ****, but i couldnt pull over anywhere yet. about 4 minutes later i pulled onto a rest area. by then i had a lifter banging and steam cominmg out from under the hood. i was like FUUUUCK!!!!. i checked the oil and there's cheese on the dipstick. so i sat for a minute to assess the very very bad situation. i'm still an hour away from base at this point.(camp pendleton) so i call a wrecker and he wants 900 bucks to tow me that far... i'm like yea **** that i can buy an engine for less than that. so i call some friends to bring me a **** load of water in gallon jugs, planning on making it as close to the base as possible to cut down a tow bill. so i fill it up and start driving. the lifter quits banging and it runs fine other than a little shimmy from a weak cylinder. i was really pissed at that point because i could have saved the engine completely. so after about 50 miles of driving and pegging out the temp gauge, it is running only on the right bank and sounds like a ******* honda. i just so happened to be in the area of a chargers' game that had JUST finished and was morem packed than normal. so at this point i'm swamped with traffic. a cop pulls me over and calls a wrecker. so i let the car cool off for about 3o minutes until the wreckerk shows up. i start the car up to drive it on the trailer, and it runs quietly again other than the banging lifter and misfire... no noise whatsoever from the bottom end. talk about a bullet proof mother ******!! i drove it around the block yesterday and it was missing and backfiring quite a bit. so i'm going to throw another set of heads and lifters in it and take my chances until it's paid off.....i have my fingers crossed.
01-05-2009, 06:32 PM
#4
Sooooooooooo, we learned that when you start running hot, you pull over no matter what, unless you want to damage something.
Just messin........hope its nothing bad, the bottom end is probably just fine. And you would have to run it for 5-10 minutes after the temp gauge hit redline to warp anything or hurt anything, those things can go 270+ no problem. I'm living proof and my engine is still fine after I looked down and saw my temp gauge at red line after doing a 150 mph run, and that happened to me 6 years ago on my current engine. I lost my serpentine while doing a highway run. Let it cool off for about 15 minutes and drove it off the highway, fixed the belt the next day and it was fine.
Good luck.
Just messin........hope its nothing bad, the bottom end is probably just fine. And you would have to run it for 5-10 minutes after the temp gauge hit redline to warp anything or hurt anything, those things can go 270+ no problem. I'm living proof and my engine is still fine after I looked down and saw my temp gauge at red line after doing a 150 mph run, and that happened to me 6 years ago on my current engine. I lost my serpentine while doing a highway run. Let it cool off for about 15 minutes and drove it off the highway, fixed the belt the next day and it was fine.
Good luck.
