[trilerian]

Bet people are tired of seeing this. But anyways, about a month ago my heater starts pushing out cold air instead of hot. I check my coolant level, and what do you know, low on coolant. So I put some 50/50 in there and everything seemed to be good. Last week I was driving about 50mph, when the engine bogged down and started to slow down on me. First thing I do is check the dash and wow, my temp is through the roof. So I pull the car over, pop the hood and pull the radiator cap off and add coolant. Drive it back to my house after it cools down, and it hesitates while accelerating, but drives fine at speed and idles fine. I checked the oil when I got home and it was dripping pretty bad. So to be sure I did an oil change, and topped off the coolant. After about 30 minutes of driving around (car still hesitating) it gained a quart of oil, and it looked like coffee with too much cream in it. No white smoke coming from the exhaust.

So now I have this car tore apart, I have the head off and the head gasket looks fine, no obvious signs of a blowout, not even any marks between the jet holes and the rings. I guess basically there are only a few things that will get coolant into the oil, 1: blown head gasket 2: cracked head 3:cracked block 4: bad intake manifold gasket???? The last, I haven't checked yet, I left the bottom part of the intake on the head when I took it off.

So questions: How much does it cost to send a head to a machine shop to check for cracks? Do I need to take the valves out of it? Also the engine has 195,000 miles on it, and since this has pretty much been a problem for at least a month, what is the chance that a spun bearing is inevitable? Also being that I have to replace the control arm bushings and front struts, should I just scrap it and get a different ride?

 

[greenbean699]

ok, first lets get that head checked for cracks and warping that dont cost much...maybe 20-30 bucks. next....i would get a complete gasket kit from Gasketpro for $85. then pull the oil pan and check clearances on the crank and change the bearings. beaing you have almost 200k miles, i would get a timing kit......they have good quality sets on ebay for $100
If the head comes back good, then its time to clean all gasket areas and put it back together. Just because the head gasket looked good doesn't mean it was. Also its a good idea to use new head blots when you put it back together.

 

[IanH]

In my experience I don't think this will cause a spun bearing.
So if you diagnose whats wrong first, add up the costs and see if its less expensive to replace the engine with a low mileage unit, maybe a JDM with your sensors etc.

 

[BeyondBiscuits2]

How high was the temperature gauge exactly when you shut the engine off? Sounds to me like you just blew your head gasket out. Occasionally when you blow head gaskets, they don't send white smoke out your exhaust. A friend of mine had the head gasket go out on his turbo Eclipse, and it only blew white smoke at 10+ lbs of boost. Bogged like crazy, though. You will need to check and make sure you didn't warp your cylinder head also. It won't do any good to get a new head gasket if your cylinder head is warped; it will just blow out again and again. Cast Iron and aluminium mated together = not fun when heat transfer becomes involved.