Catostrophic gasket failure after transmission rebuild

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Schurkey

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FIND THE LEAK before placing blame, or unreasonable suspicion.

WHAT VEHICLE IS THIS? Tell me this isn't a Vortec V-8 with the infamous intake gaskets.
 
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FIND THE LEAK before placing blame, or unreasonable suspicion.

WHAT VEHICLE IS THIS? Tell me this isn't a Vortec V-8 with the infamous intake gaskets.

V6 but yeah. What I see just from looking at it now is that appears to be a great deal of oil covering around the top of the engine around the intake. Seems to be a lot of sludge on the lower end too.


Are there any specific things I can I do to try and figure out what I am looking at?
 

Schurkey

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Are you sure the intake is covered in oil, and not congealed, dirty coolant? This would be especially likely if the "oil" is thickest around the front and rear of the manifold, where the coolant passages in the head wet the manifold.

How bad is the oil contaminated? Can you change oil and filter, top off the coolant, and drive to a car-wash? Blast the engine with hot soapy water, clean off all the sludge from the outside. Assure that the distributor has no moisture inside, start it and drive home. Then put a pressure tester on the cooling system--about 16 psi should do it. Pressure testers may be available for rent at a local auto parts store. See if you find any visible leakage from the cooling system especially the intake gaskets. If the gaskets are leaking coolant outside, they're probably also leaking coolant into the crankcase.

Other options are a cracked head or block. You'd maybe see a cracked head leakiing into the oil system by pulling a valve cover and looking for traces of coolant. Or pull the intake manifold--if the V-6 uses the same style of intake gasket that the V-8s did, you're likely going to need to do this anyway--and look for coolant traces in the lifter valley after you remove the pressure tester and then remove the intake manifold.

My Lumina uses the sort of plastic-carrier-with-Silicone seals intake gasket; they were known to tear the silicone seals on that engine, too. In my case, it leaked air into the intake runners causing a fast, rough idle.
 
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Are you sure the intake is covered in oil, and not congealed, dirty coolant? This would be especially likely if the "oil" is thickest around the front and rear of the manifold, where the coolant passages in the head wet the manifold.

How bad is the oil contaminated? Can you change oil and filter, top off the coolant, and drive to a car-wash? Blast the engine with hot soapy water, clean off all the sludge from the outside. Assure that the distributor has no moisture inside, start it and drive home. Then put a pressure tester on the cooling system--about 16 psi should do it. Pressure testers may be available for rent at a local auto parts store. See if you find any visible leakage from the cooling system especially the intake gaskets. If the gaskets are leaking coolant outside, they're probably also leaking coolant into the crankcase.

Other options are a cracked head or block. You'd maybe see a cracked head leakiing into the oil system by pulling a valve cover and looking for traces of coolant. Or pull the intake manifold--if the V-6 uses the same style of intake gasket that the V-8s did, you're likely going to need to do this anyway--and look for coolant traces in the lifter valley after you remove the pressure tester and then remove the intake manifold.

My Lumina uses the sort of plastic-carrier-with-Silicone seals intake gasket; they were known to tear the silicone seals on that engine, too. In my case, it leaked air into the intake runners causing a fast, rough idle.

Well, the mechanic broke off one of the wires and didn't put the spark plugs back. Neglected to put the airbox back on as well. So I need to get new wires and plugs to even attempt it. If you look down into the throttle body you can see the milky mix of oil and coolant inside of it, so I figure starting it at this point wouldn't be the best idea without getting it cleaned out. Not sure if just doing the intake gasket is a good place to start.

Per his advice, he said to add water and limp it back to his shop upon discovering that the oil was contaminated and that may very well have caused more damage. It got to the point where it totally died and the water must have been going straight into the block because the oil dipstick was sky high. With that, I kind of suspect that it might be a head gasket as well.

This above situation is why I am so pissed at him. Because he denies saying to do that. I know it's stupid.
 

Knuckle Dragger

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Although I understand what you are saying, I border on OCD with frequently checking oil. Pretty much every recent day that I drove it leading up to the day that it was brought into the shop for the transmission, I checked it before driving it and it looked like oil, not coolant mixed with oil. Had multiple trips beforehand that included multiple hour drives with no problems other than the transmission not shifting right.

It showed signs of trouble probably less than 10 minutes into the drive home from picking it up.

He had mentioned something about seeing a loose radiator hose and topping off the coolant and that it should be okay.

In terms of everything that I have been taught in life by the military and growing up, is that you have have to take a little bit of ownership in a situation if you miss something or **** up. It's a system he said he touched, so if there was an issue beforehand, he failed to diagnose it. Or maybe he caused an issue.

So you're looking for affirmation and a pile on, not really asking if it's reasonable? For a guy trying to blame the mechanic for his woes it's somewhat amusing to see you cry about taking responsibility.
 
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So you're looking for affirmation and a pile on, not really asking if it's reasonable? For a guy trying to blame the mechanic for his woes it's somewhat amusing to see you cry about taking responsibility.

Merely a response to someone with a piss poor attitude. Comparing someone bitching about a fuse 6 months later to a customers truck overheating after they did something with the cooling system right after they leave is rather audacious. You strike me as the type that would probably never admit that you were wrong even when you were.
 

skylark

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I manage an automotive shop. Crap like this truly does happen on a regular basis. We did front brakes on a truck today and after the customer took it he noticed that the brake pedal slowly goes to the floor. It isn't our fault. We never opened the hydraulic system. Fortunately the owner is familiar with brakes and they understand that this had nothing to do with us.

Coincidence happens!
 
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