Thursday, September 22, 2011

Motor is a complete mess -- ideas?

I have a 99 Chevy Tracker. On the way to work the other morning, the temperature gauge stopped working..it wouldn't show the motor heating up. The heater blew out ice cold air no matter how long I drove it. Eventually it overheated and I immediately pulled over. I changed the thermostat and babied it back home (had no choice but to get it home), but it still didn't change the problem. After tearing down the motor a bit, I noticed I have milky coolant/oil throughout the entire motor. The radiator is all milk too. Obviously the oil/antifreeze is mixing, and I'm hoping it is just a blown head gasket and not cracked head/block. My question is though, there is oil/antifreeze in the intake, the throttle body, and I'm sure in the intake manifold itself as well. How would this happen, and whats the best way to clean that out?Motor is a complete mess -- ideas?
Newer vehicles than '95 don't put up with that kind of abuse without cracking their heads. Basically, the head gasket went bad first, and leaked exhaust gasses into the cooling system. But driving it home probably pushed it over the edge. Remove the dirty removable parts and blast them at a car wash if you don't have a pressure washer or parts washer. You will have to flush out the block with motor flush.

Note: if equipped with dexacool......then the motor is probably toast. dexacool is an organic acid and turns into a nasty semi-solid when it hits the oil and cloggs the oil pump and passages. You can clean it if you like, but it will rattle from the tore up bearings in it.Motor is a complete mess -- ideas?
Clean it up when you have it apart to see if(hopefully) the head gasket is your problem.

It got there because the combustion or PSI in the cylinders is usually 150psi plus. so greater pressure pushes it any where it can

Have a real close look at your cylinder wall, pistons and rings while you have the head off.

Rotate the engine by hand and check the entire cylinder wall (full stroke) of each cylinder for scoring

If scored...sorry to say, but I think you know

Good luckMotor is a complete mess -- ideas?
You are probably right about a blown head gasket. The pressure from the cylinders could be forcing the fluid out into the intake manifold.Motor is a complete mess -- ideas?
You would really have to tear it completely down to assess the damage. It sounds like a catastrophic engine failure though. If I were in your shoes, I would try to get a complete engine from a reputable salvage yard. If you do that, make sure you completely flush the radiator before installing another engine. Otherwise, any contaminants from your old engine could ruin your new one. Good Luck!!



ps. cool name!Motor is a complete mess -- ideas?
Another tricky question to answer from the armchair. The head bolts directly to the intake manifold (meaning you are going to have to remove the intake manifold to pull the head) %26amp; although it has never happened to me in a hundred thousand miles of abusing automobiles, I suppose it is possible that you could blow a yhead gasket bad enough to that the coolant in the cylinderjakets got mixed with the oil in the galleys %26amp; got sprayed all into everything.



I can imagine it was quite a mess! Must have been running like crap, huh? Does that tracker have aluminum heads %26amp;/or block -- and -- just how hot did it get %26amp; for how long? Aluminum heads don't much like to get way overheated; it's possible you warped the head?



Well, to simply change the gasket, the head will have to come off, meaning that basically everything on top of the engine will have to come off (yuk!), so there is how you will have access to cleaning that gunk out (plenty of good carcinogenic degreasers available in spray cans at any parts store, again, I know this from experience). Once the head is pulled out, you can look right down into the cylinders, %26amp; wipe them clean (definitely important, coolant does not compress, so on the compression stroke you could bend a rod). At that point, %26amp; I'm simply throwing haphazard advice now, you can take the head to a machine shop %26amp; have it checked for warpage, %26amp; if you can get some dye penatrant, I suppose you could check your block for cracks.



Sorry to hear about that mess, %26amp; sorry for not being able to offer much. Good luck.Motor is a complete mess -- ideas?
If you don't have white exhaust it is a cracked block. I wouldn't bother cleaning it because you're going to need a new (used) short block. To clean the parts after replacement just do a long flush...it still won't clean out the oil but you'll get enough to not hinder operation.

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