Is this a head gasket (2000 Dakota)

=A0Well, I looked at the 2000 Dosge Dakota I have at home that was my brothers. 1st I tried to start it but it had sat so long the battery was dead. Charged the battery for a minute. Got it to crank a few times but not start. I went ahead and took the plugs out:

6 =3D 90psi 3 =3D 190 psi (120 checked later) 5 =3D 105 psi 2 =3D 90 psi 4 =3D 95 psi 1 =3D 95 psi

These are the compression readings and the order I checked them. 1 being the drivers side front, 3 the drivers side back, 4 being passanger side front, 6 being passanger side back. After checking all compression I re-checked # 3 because of it being so much higher than the others. It was 120 at this time.

When I pulled out the plugs the best I could tell they were ok. Looked worn. Except number 3. It looked wet but not drenched. Also, On this plug, the porcelane on the bottom of the plug around the gap was broken, also, the grounding part that curves over (The part you adjust the gap) was brken in half and missing.

Cranking with no spark plugs, light vaporized mist or or something came from most of the holes but #3 I could tell had more coming out. It was like water or droplets as I cranked much heavier than the rest.

I took a piece of winshield washer hose and stuck it down a few of the spark plug holes and sucked with my mouth. (Probably not smart). Never really got much of anythign out with the exception of #3. There was some gas in there but also a sweet taste. (Would this be antifreeze?)

Inside of radiator hose had brown granulated crud that I could pull out with my finger. Almost looked like brown sugar but a more red color.

If I did not mention, truck has 151,000 on it. Overheated on my brother. White smoke rolling out when it warmed up. When he had it towed to my house, I started it right up and drove it about 200 feet to park it and had no trouble at all and did not notice any sounds or anything unusual.

Can I assume this is a blown head gasget around # 3? What is the liklihood this is a cracked head? Should both head gaskets be replaced? Should I go ahead and have the heads machined or check with a straightedge and then if ok don=92t worry about it?

I want this to run right but money is a factor. My salary has been cut recently due to the hard economic times. (Still thankful I have a job though).

Reply to
stryped
Loading thread data ...

Have you looked at the oil? You need to find out if water has gotten into the oil. I suspect it has since it overheated and that can be really bad.

Pull the oil dipstick and hold a lighter or flame under it. If there's coolant in it you'll know because it'll boil out. It also may look foamy which usually means there's quite a bit of coolant in it.

We've had this happen to 2 vehicles and in both cases it was easy to fix and get them running again but they both failed soon after because the bearings were ruined from lack of lubrication with the oil diluted so much.

One of them was a 1997 Chevy Malibu and it was actually caused by a cracked intake gasket which is (as I found out later) a known problem with these. The car was like new with only 57k miles even though it was 11 years old at the time.

The mechanic that worked on it was also not aware that this happened to a lot of them. He complained to my wife that she never changed the oil and it was really sludged up. I told him she's a fanatic about changing it and questioned whether it might be antifreeze but he didn't think so.

After he replaced the gasket and got it running again it seemed to be fine until she drove it more than 10 miles and then it died. Turns out the camshaft locked up at one end and broke in half because the cam bearings were ruined by the "sludged up" oil.

We don't use this mechanic any more. :-(

Best Regards, Keith Marshall snipped-for-privacy@progressivelogic.com

"I'm not grown up enough to be so old!"

Well, I looked at the 2000 Dosge Dakota I have at home that was my brothers. 1st I tried to start it but it had sat so long the battery was dead. Charged the battery for a minute. Got it to crank a few times but not start. I went ahead and took the plugs out:

6 = 90psi 3 = 190 psi (120 checked later) 5 = 105 psi 2 = 90 psi 4 = 95 psi 1 = 95 psi

These are the compression readings and the order I checked them. 1 being the drivers side front, 3 the drivers side back, 4 being passanger side front, 6 being passanger side back. After checking all compression I re-checked # 3 because of it being so much higher than the others. It was 120 at this time.

When I pulled out the plugs the best I could tell they were ok. Looked worn. Except number 3. It looked wet but not drenched. Also, On this plug, the porcelane on the bottom of the plug around the gap was broken, also, the grounding part that curves over (The part you adjust the gap) was brken in half and missing.

Cranking with no spark plugs, light vaporized mist or or something came from most of the holes but #3 I could tell had more coming out. It was like water or droplets as I cranked much heavier than the rest.

I took a piece of winshield washer hose and stuck it down a few of the spark plug holes and sucked with my mouth. (Probably not smart). Never really got much of anythign out with the exception of #3. There was some gas in there but also a sweet taste. (Would this be antifreeze?)

Inside of radiator hose had brown granulated crud that I could pull out with my finger. Almost looked like brown sugar but a more red color.

If I did not mention, truck has 151,000 on it. Overheated on my brother. White smoke rolling out when it warmed up. When he had it towed to my house, I started it right up and drove it about 200 feet to park it and had no trouble at all and did not notice any sounds or anything unusual.

Can I assume this is a blown head gasget around # 3? What is the liklihood this is a cracked head? Should both head gaskets be replaced? Should I go ahead and have the heads machined or check with a straightedge and then if ok don?t worry about it?

I want this to run right but money is a factor. My salary has been cut recently due to the hard economic times. (Still thankful I have a job though).

Reply to
Keith Marshall

Ditto The 2.8L (and the Hi-Po 3.4L that will hopefully still be available when I'm ready for it) is a fine engine, But with aluminum heads and an iron block you have to keep up on your coolant maintenance (flushing and/or replacing the corrosion inhibitors). If you don't, then water leaks into the coolant and f***s up the bottom end, leading to the well- known rep of these engines having a 'weak bottom end'.

I'd check that oil, and if there's a diagnostic I'd just pull the pan and take a look at the bottom end bearings to see if they looked good, either to see if there's a quickie fix I could do, or to see if I'd be better off trashing the engine _before_ I did a bunch of expensive work on the head.

Reply to
Tim Wescott

I checked the oil but not sure it is hard to tell. I will try the lighter trick.

My intention is to fix it, drive it for awhile while I try to sell it. But I dont want to spend that money if the bearings will go bad. Is there a sure fire way to tell?

Is it the fact that the bearings were exposed to coolant or that the coolant makes the oil less "viable" SInce the smoke incident, it has not been driven but has sat. The oil has not been changed.

Did these Dodges use the Dex cool stuff??

Reply to
stryped

You DEFINITELY have either a blown head gasket or cracked head, at the minimum. Could have cyl damage as well - Pull the heads - visually check the cyls for wear, gouging, and rust, and if OK have the heads checked for warpage, cracking, and valve damage.

Reply to
clare

I checked the oil but not sure it is hard to tell. I will try the lighter trick.

My intention is to fix it, drive it for awhile while I try to sell it. But I dont want to spend that money if the bearings will go bad. Is there a sure fire way to tell?

Is it the fact that the bearings were exposed to coolant or that the coolant makes the oil less "viable" SInce the smoke incident, it has not been driven but has sat. The oil has not been changed.

Did these Dodges use the Dex cool stuff??

---------------------------------- oil with coolant in it looks like chocolate (or coffee) icecream, and it has about the same texture.If the oil still looks like oil, don't worry too much - check the dip stick - if the oil level is normal, chances are that you didn't get coolant in the oil.

could be a head gasket, or a crack in the cyl head or a crack in a cylinder

Reply to
Bill Noble

There wouldn't be a sure-fire way to tell if it *didn't* have a blown head gasket or cracked head. But the previous poster is the first time I've ever heard of somebody damaging bearings by getting water mixed with oil

No, but there's no guarantee a previous owner didn't.

Reply to
Joe Pfeiffer

Yes, for certain. You really want to have a stiff drink after getting antifreeze in your body. (Believe it or not, that is the recommended ER protocol, although they do it intravenously.)

Anyway, if you want to find out if the bearings are going to seize before deciding to pull the head, etc. why not change the oil and drive it a while. Watch the coolant level, and maybe have somebody follow you in case it has a major fit like blowing a radiator hose off. If it is a small leak in the head gasket, you can probably drive it gently for 10 - 20 miles without making things much worse. If it is a large leak, then it is going to start blowing steam all over the place. You might want to leave the radiator cap off so if it starts blowing a lot of gas into the coolant that has somewhere to escape easily. If nothing unusual happens over that distance, then you have a good chance that there's no great damage. If it is blowing lots of white smoke out the exhaust, though, that probably shows it is a larger leak, and you probably shouldn't drive it. Antifreeze washes the oil film off the cylinder walls. On an aluminum cylinder engine like the Vega L-4, engine life was about 2 minutes under this condition. A steel block engine can withstand it more, but it still eats up the cylinders after a while.

Jon

Reply to
Jon Elson

I was told at midas it blew so much white smoke they had to open the bay doors. The cylinder heads are cast iron.

I will say I started it right up and drove it off the tow truck at my house and let it idle for a minute with no problem.

I would like to fix it but I dont want ot put a bunch of money in it and soin a bearing or soemthing.

Reply to
stryped

IF the engine overheated and was shut down quick then you likely won't have a problem with the bearings. Where you run into bearing problems is in a situation where you have had antifreeze leaking into the oil for a longer time and being run that way. The chemicals in the antifreeze actually dissolve the metals used in the bearing inserts.

The only way to figure out if it's a gasket or a cracked head/block is to pull the heads and look. If it is ONLY the gasket you could measure the heads and block to see if they are both still flat on the mating surfaces. If they are and the heads don't show damage just bolt it together with new gaskets. Drop the oil and install a new filter and some cheap oil. Start the engine, let it warm up, shut down then change the oil again. Check the second batch of oil for water/coolant. If you find some then change the oil again. The second change should have no water/coolant in it unless you have a different leak.

One thing with many of the newer engines. The castings are THIN wall for the most part. Even a single overheat can crack them. Look VERY close or have a shop do crack detection (either dye or magnaflux).

Reply to
Steve W.

If you do end up deciding that it needs machining to flatten the block/ head, look into the cost of a junkyard motor instead ( car-part.com etc.). I found that the price of a low mileage junkyard motor, an engine crane, and a new clutch was cheaper than the cost to fix my old motor. It took about a week to replace, working afternoons, not including waiting for parts. Label everything, take digital pictures if you can. I still ended up having to puzzle some stuff out due to gaps in my notes. --Glenn Lyford

Reply to
Glenn Lyford

NO!!!! Any additional antifreeze,and any additional running with antifreeze in the oil, will damage the bearings. Dodge engines are far less susceptible than Ford to this "bearing wiping" but you need to bite the bullet. Either fix it and hope, or scrap it.

If you fix it, you want to flush the crankcase very well. Drain the old oil, and rinse the crankcase with kero. Crank the engine to flush the oil galleries as well. Drain and repair. THEN put in clean engine oil and Marvel Mystery Oil or Rislone, with a fresh cheap filter. Run the engine for about 20 minutes at 2000 RPM or better with no load. Drain and refil with fresh oil - I would put in a bottle of Lucas stabilizer with the oil, and drive it a thousand miles or so - see how it goes.

Reply to
clare

If you've overheated the head; it is likely warped if not cracked. Inspect it carefully...

Reply to
David Lesher

What happens is the antifreeze etches the bearing inserts , and then they fail . Any time a GM (ours was a 3.1) V6 drops intake manifold seals (usually from an overheat) , there is a chance of coolant contaminating the oil - which turns it into an emulsion with the consistency of grease . My wife's '96 Corsica did this , we completely rebuilt the motor - rod & main bearings , cam bearings , rings and all new seals and gaskets . It had

87,000 miles on the rebuild when we traded it , still got 29 MPG and only used a half-quart of oil between changes (every 5k miles) . She wishes she still had it , her mini-SUV only gets 19 MPG ...
Reply to
Terry Coombs

It's not the water , it's the antifreeze . It etches the bearing insert surfaces , then they fail .

Reply to
Terry Coombs

To flatten a head, is less than $50 last time I did one a couple years ago. Was about $150 with a valve grind tossed in. Chevy 4.3L V6.

Reply to
Calif Bill

PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.