99 Burb girl drove car and it overheated and shut off & towed home - please help.

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whytry

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Yep, so my girl decided to take the burb to drop off her daughter at her dad's house about 80 miles away. She usually drives the burb all around town, so its used and doesn't sit for long periods of time. Well she drove it about 30 miles on both freeway and city driving, no issues that she saw. Well she went to the drivethru for McD's, and while in line the check engine light came on, she called me but I could not answer my phone, so she finished her order etc and since the car wasn't running funny or anything she thought it was fine. So she got on the freeway and went about another 10 miles at freeway speeds, and then the check engine light started flashing and then check gauges was flashing as well, she now noticed the temp was all the way over in the red. She went to exit the freeway and the car shut off, she was able to get it to the exit and pull over it was smoking and would not start again. She actually rolled into a gas station and the guy working told her to leave it alone for a couple minutes as it looked like it overheated so she waited about 10 minutes, then the guy popped the hood, took off radiator cap and it was empty, he added water, started it up but saw it was not smoking out the tailpipe and shut it back off as not going to help doing more damage. It was towed home that night. So now I am off work and got that call after all this. We towed it home, I checked fluids, found a hole in the radiator, and it is mixed with oil from color, and checked dipstick, which looks like choc milk. My questions are it is still in the car, what can I do now to try and figure out what is wrong with it, with it still in the car and at home? It's more than likely one of 3, I know, head gasket (my hope), cracked head or cracked block.. How can I determine which one of the 3? or is there something else I am missing here. The truck only has 110k on it and is in excellent condition until now, so I don't really want to part it out and then have no burb (family of 6, so need bigger SUV). I'm hoping to try to look at it this weekend.....

I was thinking of changing oil, draining coolant, flushing coolant system and then trying to see if it mixes right away or not. But I've only done this once before and that was when I blew the motor in my 68 Camaro, but that was when I had a 496BBC waiting to go in, so I didn't care about the old motor.

Please help.

Thanks in advance....
 

RichLo

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Sorry to hear man, that sucks.

Your going to have to pull the heads no matter what so I would do that first and check the condition on the head gaskets and hope to find a major problem there.

What engine is in it? 305's are know to have weak heads that crack. 350's are pretty stout though.
 

skylark

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My experience with your situation. Milkshake oil washes the oil film from the bearings. Heat breaks down bearings. The combination of both means that it is time for pulling the engine, stripping it and at a minimum, roll in new bearings. Don't forget the cam bearings. Over 90% of the ones with milkshake and heat are almost instantly yanking the engine in short order.
 

whytry

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Its is the 350.

Downside is I don't have cherry picker or engine stand to rebuild it. So trying to improvise here a little. And top it off its sitting in the driveway half blocking the getting the other car out.
 

GarrettGmc

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Sorry for bad luck but I agree with skylark. I got a 99 then kept having one spark plug foul and when it got stripped down both heads were cracked. Not enough for coolant leaking into the cylinder but it would've happen. Depending on how fast you need it back in running order id drop a new crate motor in or have a well known and respectable shop do it, might be costly but quicker.
 

whytry

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That's what I was afraid of. Having to pull n basically rebuild it
 

GarrettGmc

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You might have some luck finding a running motor in a wrecked truck for a temp fix until you can get a new motor. Around here I see ppl selling trucks with rebuilt engine for around 1k just because the tranny went out. Always good to check and ask around.
 

CoolDude1975

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Now why would you tell him some stupid **** like that lol. The very first thing he needs to do is drain all the fluids out of it because the water mixed in with the oil is sitting there doing nothing but more damage. But it sounds like he doesn't have the extra money like most of us don't to just pay a shop to rebuild it or pop a crate motor in it s my recommendation is to find one cheap at a junk yard or on Craigslist and drop it in and if it's a good motor then he should get several years or more out of it.
 
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