I have been busting my ass to get my truck done for the roundup this year. Well, I finally took it around the block for a test run this weekend. When I killed the engine I heard the great sound of bubbling. I cracked the lid on the radiator and it looked like someone had dumped cappuccino in it. My damn electric fan failed to come on, even though I had just tested it earlier that day. I could not hear it happening, because I was running open headers. The motor has been sitting for 4 years waiting to be used. I won it in a raffle and killed it in less than 5 minutes! RALPH! I am getting the heads checked now, hopefully that is the problem, not the block. Just thought I would share my misfortune for those of you who have crap happen. Build #1 http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=241552 Build #2 http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=241555
It never fails... if it can go wrong, guess what? Don't let it get you down, if building really cool rides was easy, everybody would have a truck like yours. See ya at Roundup!
Man that sucks!!! How hot was it outside??? I am suprised it cooked itself in 5 mins without a fan. Is your water pump functioning properly???
It was really nice out, 70 or so. The pump seemed to be working fine. I ran the motor before to get everything set, so I don't know what the hell happened. I won't know what to do till I get the heads back, if they are fine then I have to rip the block apart and get that checked.
sounds like you killed the head gaskets i would have re torqued them first to be sure while the motor was still warm/hot. if it still bubbled then i would have broken in the motor and had them checked. 5 minutes of running hot shouldnt hurt it, the worst thing you did was seat the rings.
If I was a fat, ugly, drunk woman with the biggest camel toe in the galaxy, in a purple shirt...that is pretty close! HAHAHA!
I have hardly ever seen oil in the radiator..usually water in the oil, the milkshake is in the oil pan.. the only time I've seen it in the radiator is when an auto trans cooler leaked. Then it is pink milkshake. Is it possible the LT-1 motor and the intake you put on it are not an exact match, causing a bad internal water leak? I have not seen many V8 engines cook up that fast, and even ones that do get hot (really hot) have no damage. My wife drove a Impala with a 305, overheated it until it shut off. Let it cool, changed the oil. there were no ill effects. It still ran and drove fine.
wait, maybe i'm not getting this. How do you know you cooked the motor? OK, you overheated it, but what makes you think it's wasted? Get your fan working, then try it again. No sense in pulling the motor apart yet if it turns out it's OK. Before I fixed the colling issues in my car, I ran that bitch for hours at 255 degrees and never once blew a head gasket. In fact, I ran for many thousands of reliabe miles after that. Relax, take a deep breath, have a beer and get back to work
Wait, if you blew a head gasket that badly, you should have seen smoke and shit pouring out of your exhaust. Did you experience any of this?
I checked the gaskets and they looked fine. Thats why I went ahead and had the heads checked. With the gaskets being ok, I fear the worst. Thanks for the info though. I guess I should have done that and would have if I had thought of it. When it comes to engine work I am pretty much a rookie. I guarantee you after this crap I will know more.
I agree, doubt you even heated it up too much that fast, let alone cooked it. My guess is you have a leak somewhere. Sitting for 4 years is likely the cause. After that amount of time, I probably would have given it a good once over or had someone do it for me. I doubt you did much real damage to it. I bet it is a bad gasket or miss matched something somewhere.
Reminds me of when I rebuilt a Vette I had got. I built the motor, but had Ken's Automotive do the machine work. Assembled the motor and remounted it in the Vette. Fired her up to break the cam in. 10 mins of running, I heard a loud bang so I killed the motor. Looked around and couldn't find anything. Fired the motor back up and finished breaking in the cam. Motor sounded rough so I pulled the plugs and cranked it over. Water was spurting out of #4 cylinder. Pulled the heads and looked in the cylinder. Nothing, flip the head over and saw a valve bend over. Turns out, the valve guide was too tight and a valve hung open. Water was seeping from the guide. Raised bloody hell at Ken's Automotive (they rebuilt the heads) and they redid the heads. Buttoned her up and the Vette ran fine. Used the Vette for street racing only on Van Nuys Blvd. It was Bottle Bobs old car.
you sure you didn't just blow a head gasket? in that little amount of time i can't see it cracking anything. anyway good luck to ya!
I don't have cooler lines in the radiator. I had water in the heads in the valley and the radiator. It is possible when the original head work was done, it may have caused the intake to not line up with the heads correctly... it's a possibility. But I want to get the heads checked just to make sure. Once I find out if they are ok, I will go ahead and put 'em back on and run it and see what happens. If it happens again, I will probably have to tear it down...
OMG that sucks!!! You sure since its a new motor it didn't have residual oil sitting in a water passage waiting to be flushed out? It doesn't take but a teaspoon of oil to milkshake a lot of water, and vice versa.
Did it look like milkshake in the oilpan. The motor was still running right ?.Im here to tell you that motor wont cook in 5min no way.As someone allready mentioned it's very hard to get oil in the water .Easy to get water in the oil.If it is oil in the water it would about have to be the block. Could it be transmission fluid ?do you have a cooler in the rad for transmission ?
Pretty sure, I have run it a few times (not driving) and let it get up to about 195 or so before I shut it down.
inspect the head gasket you took off. you should be able to see where it was leaking, if it was leaking, just a thought to help you pinpoint the problem. it would suck to put it back together not knowing what caused it
Unless Im missing something you took the truck for a ride without rad hoses or a temp gauge? A brand new motor wasn't worth the extra 20 minutes??
Are you sure you just didn't finally get it hot enough to start to cook all the crap off the insides of the new motor, new hoses, new radiator, and are getting that crap floating? I'm having a hard time thinking where oil would get into the water at. Its always from my experience the other way around do to pressure. High pressure wants to go to low pressure. Crankcase pressure is way lower than cooling system pressure, so water likes to seek to the low pressure in the crankcase if there is a leak, not vice versa..... Just open brainstorming..................no idea from 250 miles away.
Yeah you're missing something. I made no mention of not having hoses on it, of course I had hoses on it. With my electric fan suppose to be working I had my gauges out doing some final wiring on them.
You spent $40 bucks on your engine...you get what you pay for. Doesn't sound like it's hurt too badly though. Need more investigation before you decide it's blown up. Gauges at least next time.
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