The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop Uhhhh, think I blew a head gasket...

Just replaced my fuel pump on Tuesday, which was leaking into my oil pan, so new pump, new oil filter, and new oil. About 8 hours ago, leaving the house with full oil, drove into town.

As I was getting onto a parkway on-ramp, as I was shifting from 2nd to 3rd, got a shutter and the engine sputtered and cut off, followed by a nice sized puff of smoke that I noticed from my rear view (don't know the color, it was dark).

Figured it might have been oil hitting the hot tail pipe that did that. Looked under the truck with my trusty MagLite and saw antifreeze dripping from the tip of my tailpipe. Is this indicative of a blown headgasket? By the way I checked the dip stick while waiting for a tow and I barely got 1/4 inch up of oil.

Again, I'm completely out of my element here. It's a 1966 250 fresh rebuild with about 10,000 miles on it. Any advice would be much appreciated, thanks in advance!

-Preston

You need to do some more diagnosis. Pull the oil cap & see if there is foam on the bottom of it or in the chamber. Find out why it quite running. Are you sure the liquid on the tail pipe was a-freeze & not just water from condensation. I'm thinking it was an ign. failure.

A head gasket doesn't usually cause it to quit running unless they suck a lot of water and push a piston out the side.

Check the underside of the valve cover or oil cap as George suggest, it will be nasty if you have water in the oil. Also the oil in the pan will be milky. Pull the drain plug and let out just a small cup of oil, if its got water in there, it will come out first.

While you are checking, look at the PCV valve, it might be bad. Sounds like you lost more oil? PCV valve go bad and suck oil into the intakes which will cause smoke out the tail pipe.

Joe

Thanks, i'll take a look in the morning, however im starting to lean towards the fact that my old baby mightve seized up

No, no water in the oil, turns out the oil pan actually was full, it was just so clean and new that i couldnt see the line on the dipstick, but it's obvious there is no water or coolant in the oil. My radiator is empty, which seems to mean that all the coolant went through the cylinders and blew out my exhaust manifold, hence the smoke and dripping antifreeze. I have a guy looking at it right now, he's taking out the plugs and seeing how high the cylinder heads go to see if I bent a rod or not. Fingers crossed!!!

Yup, bent a rod... $%&#@%$&$#$@

$%&#@%$&$#$@ x2
Sorry to hear that.