I was changing the stupid FPR hose the other day on my truck and was trying to press the nipple on the back of my FAST intake (car intake conversion) and my stupid heater hose connecter snapped off, coolant started seeping and wrapped it up in paper towels for a few min until it stopped. Sat it up and put some more paper towels around it. Nobody had the part around town, so I went to lowes and bought a connecter and clamped them together. Got home and coolant had seeped all over the back of the intake, got most up with paper towels. Before I clamped them together I filled up each end with coolant, at first it needed more and more until I realized I needed to unscrew the coolant cap, then all was fine. Started it up and idled kinda rough then smoothed out. Took it around the block a few times, temp shoot up fast, but never overheated. I kept stopping and unscrewing the cap slowly and squeezing the lines trying to work out any air bubbles. The
temp stayed stable, punched it out on the highway and revved slower than usual and had less power. Drove it to work today and power was down even more, didn't go more than half throttle, it didn't go past 200* the whole time either. Checked the coolant when I got home, looked fine, checked oil and it looked milky and didn't have any strong odors. Started to get under the truck to change the oil and oil was all over the bottom back half of the motor on the driver side. At first I thought it was the rear seal, pulled the plate and looked through inspection hole and it was dry. The oil seemed watery also. Drained the oil and put the flashlight on it and it looked milky, caught some in a cup when it first started draining. Smells burnt and looks like dark coffee, but not black if that makes sense. The oil seems to be at the exact level of the head gasket on the back few cylinders. Truck has over heated a few times in the past, most recently when I left it running getting a snowcone (a/c on high and one of the fan relays burnt up when I was in line) got to 245ish for about 10 min. Sorry for the long post, just freaking out, cause I'm broke and it's my DD. Hoping it's a blown head gasket and a quick fix. Any previous experiences, opinions, advice, etc. are appreciated! Thanks

 

Sounds like a blown head gasket to me. Could be worse like a cracked block. Be very thorough when you pull it apart.

 

Most of the time when You overheat an engine that has aluminum heads that much for that long , You warp the heads stretching the head bolts and often times You crack the heads usually between the valve seats in 1 or more of the combustion chamber areas . Good luck .

 

Thanks for the info. If it's just the head, would the internals be ok with no obvious signs of damage? Or is it already shot?

 

I know I need to check stuff out anyway. Gonna try and take off the heads when I get home tonight and inspect stuff.

 

I had a few hours to start the tear-down today, down to removing the intake is as far as I got. Found some interesting things though. The header flanges look very slightly warped and had a few tiny burnt oil dots around where the primaries meet the flange, this was on both sides on just a few places. Needless to say they won't be reused.
Next was oil stains around carols parts of the FAST intake. The inside of the intake is completely covered in oil sludge.
Weirdest part was when taking the injector connections loose, one injector connection had oil inside the connection!
The intake ports are covered in a greenish oil sludge and what looks like maybe little gas puddles sitting on top of the valves that are closed.
Looks like a major fuel problem! Looks like the injectors dumping way too much fuel and at least one totally shot injector (the one with oil in the connection). No signs of coolant or cracks so far, but I've barely scratched the surface. Either way, I'm pretty sure my rings are toast as well as the bearings from all the gas I see.
I'm hoping the crank, rods, and pistons are ok. Keeping my fingers crossed. It's a 98' block, so I think I'm screwed because the bore is already 3.903" and I've read numerous sources that that is the max on that year block. Especially with the 4.000" stroke.
Any thoughts? Thanks