I thought there was only a blown gasket because when you'd try to turn the motor over the reservoir would bubble like crazy. When I took it all apart today, the gaskets were not "blown" like I had expected. In fact they looked good except for a little bit of damage between two of the cylinders.
When I pulled the heads, there was water (coolant) on every piston.
I drained the oil and had some nice milkshake effect and let it sit all day with no plug or filter. I was going to drop the pan but can't seem to see how it comes out. I've never done one of these before so I'm not familiar with the layout. It is very involved to remove? I dabble in turbo buicks so I know my way around those but these are a little different.
As for the heads, I cannot see anything that resembles damage whatsoever. I did notice that the lower intake manifold gasket looked fairly new and that most everything was gunked up with silicone. And there was no T-stat.
Short of Magnafluxing the heads, shouldn't I be able to tell with a visual inspection? Further, when we initially tried to start the car when I bought it, after a few attempts, water was gushing out of somewhere because there was a nice stream pouring from the exhaust (outside the exhaust) - the truck was on an incline). Thus, I was anticipating some huge hole or missing chunk. One the contrary, I have yet to discover what could cause such a stream of water (it was literally as if someone had turned on a hose ever-so-gently and let it trickle for a while)...
I'll try and post a pic or two if I can figure it out...