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Help with a Milk shake I did not order!

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WH1

5150
Joined
Oct 19, 2001
Messages
729
I drove my car to work, 42 miles one way, for the first time in 4-5 months. After work I was showing off for a couple of buddys and had a loud pop, followed by stuttering when I went WOT. The car still pulled hard and ran cool on the way home. I popped the hood and saw a gooey substance coming out of both breathers. Pulled the stick and black oil with the dreaded milk shake looking stuff high on the stick. My car has always had a bad idle and vapors coming out of the breathers so this may have been coming. What do I do now? Did I hurt the motor or turbo at all? I've got a spare block and 2 sets of heads but I'm sure they need machine work. Do I need a complete rebuild or did the 42 miles home not hurt it? Thanks in advance.
 
Thanks for the reply Mike. I drove it for 42 miles after I heard the popping sound. Would I have hurt any bearings or anything? How can I flush all of the coolant and oil out? Thanks.
 
Originally posted by WH1
Thanks for the reply Mike. I drove it for 42 miles after I heard the popping sound. Would I have hurt any bearings or anything? How can I flush all of the coolant and oil out? Thanks.
Pull the oil pan off. Its very easy and you dont need to lift the engine to get it off. Drain the oil first so its not so heavy when you drop it.

You can do a compression or leak down test to determine which head has the bad gasket so you dont need to pull both heads if you dont want to.
 
Originally posted by WH1
Thanks for the reply Mike. I drove it for 42 miles after I heard the popping sound. Would I have hurt any bearings or anything? How can I flush all of the coolant and oil out? Thanks.

If you had antifreeze in for coolant, probably the bearings are damaged? Check them when the pan is removed.

Be sure you change both head gaskets as never seen only one damaged if there was a blow-out.

Hoping all is well in the bottom end, and if it is, flush the oil system by removing the cam sensor and the turbo feed line. Spin the pump with a drill until you get clean oil in a jug. May take a case of oil but worth it to get the crud out. After driving for long enough to get the motor hot, drain the oil again.
 
Thanks for the replies, guys. I drained the oil and it looks black with a little more thickness but no apparent metal shavings in it. Oddly enough, no milkshake stuff in the oil drained. But the oil fill tube and breather are full of it. I'm going to work but I'll pull the pan off tommorrow. What should I be looking for tommorrow? Sorry, I'm a total novice at this. Do I need to have anything done to my heads or will they be allright? Thanks.
 
Same thing happened to me, and I limped it home. I changed the head gasket, and towed it to a shop where my friend works. We did this flush with this machine that they have. It had a clear cylinder that allowed you to see the flush as you do it. And you wouldn't believe how much graphite and bearing material was in this thing. We did 5 flushes, and it seemed that it never got much more clear. "Screw it", I tore it down. It did not take long for the antifreeze to do it's magic and trash my bearings. The babbit material was totally gone, they were completely, copper. This was after about 30 or 40 miles. I hope yours didn't turn out like mine. Like Nick said, might as well pull the pan and pull a cap off.
Good luck, I hope it's better than mine was.
 
Well I have blown my share of head gaskets and have always gotten lucky by not wiping any bearings, but I also run Redline Water Wetter and tap water for a coolant since I live in AZ and it never freezes.

As far as changing both gaskets, I have never blown both, always only one, and the last 2 was the same cylinder (next time will be a machining job on the heads for a flat surface.)
 
maybe you got lucky and blew into the intake?

if you run antifreeze and it got into the crankcase it is only a matter of time.......

consider what that graphite stuff is going to do to your turbo...do not be surprised if it starts smoking in a few months

unless you can do a new oil cooler, disconnect it....you'll never get it clean

use steel shim gaskets next time....no graphite to clean up

(ps I have blown my share of gaskets...ask Nick):cool:
 
I had the same thing after a rebuild. I changed the oil out and on the 3rd change it was fine. I was ready to pull the motor also and Jack Cotton said if we pull the motor the bearings are gonna be changed anyway, and I was amazed that he was right. He said it was condensation because the motor was sitting so long before the install. It still looked just as bad after the 2nd change, but the 3rd was perfect. Might wanna try that before you tear the motor apart.
 
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