Changing head gaskets

[vq5speed]

Definitely white smoke and smelled of antifreeze the times it happened. And last week when it smoked blue, I'm talking a cloud so big and thick you couldn't see thru it for a good 20 seconds on startup and then once it went away it would be enough that with a tail wind I could see hints of it blowing past me sitting at a stop light.

You made it sound like smoke was occasional and the white smoke would stop. You never said you smelled antifreeze in the exhaust. Yes if your getting antifreeze smell then it is more serious. I got lucky my burning oil was a simple fix. I was just putting that out there that a smoking problem could be a bad PCV valve. Did you have light brown milky oil? If you didn't I wonder how anitfreeze can get into the combustion chamber but not get into the oil..

 

[sirhk100]

It was occasional. It's my daily driver. On an average week and only last winter and this winter it would do it maybe 3-4 times a week on initial startup. Sometimes white, sometimes blue. Never did it over the summer here in Vegas though. Fouled a plug about 3 times over maybe the last 16 months or so. But then last week, Mon & Tues the minor puff started getting worse and over 2 days it went from a minor 2-3 seconds of some smoking to HOLY CRAP WHAT'S WRONG WITH THAT DUDE'S RIDE kind of smoking for about 10-20 seconds on startup and then it would mellow out after about the initial startup to where it was just a slight blue smoke. You could smell antifreeze though still in the blue smoke last week.

Have never had any odd colored oil at all. Never noticed any bubbling in the radiator either actually. It did use antifreeze and has ever since it's been smoking. Maybe 1/4 radiator low over a month's worth of driving.

On the top of the block you can see a little marking where it looks like I was having my coolant issue on the cylinder that occasionally would foul.

The one that's OILY though right now is not that same cylinder oddly enough.

Like I said, only thing we've noticed really so far other then average wear was the oil ring was caked pretty solid with oily crud which could be where my massive smoke screen came from.





Thanks for the compliment JD!


I'll grab some more detailed photos tonight. We've moved beyond head gaskets... Hopefully nobody is angry I'm pretty much cluttering up this thread! LOL It was old and when I bumped it I was on topic at least!

 

[sirhk100]

Couple pictures from last night. I got home, was one bolt short on the engine stand, had to run out and grab that. Back home, got it on the stand, got the remaining head pulled off and dropped the oil pan back off. At that point my uncle showed up and I didn't want to be like hold on, let me snap some photos... We just started tearing down and cleaning up. So... Ended up not really getting many photos to show but here's two that kind of show a bit of a smoking gun.

Here's the pistons of the two cylinders I've fouled plugs in.

left one here...

and left one here...

The detail to notice is between the top two rings, the piston itself... See how clean it is? It was obviously pumping fluid past the those rings because if it wasn't it would be more carboned up like the pistons sitting next to each of those. Gut feeling is I was actually getting coolant from the second picture piston and oil from the first. Reason being, the head on the first picture piston was soaked in oil... Duh... Where the top of the block in a small area on the second pictured piston had some witness mark of water getting past the gasket.

Either way, whatever... Ordered all my parts last night and got the block cleaned up and prepped to reassemble. Hopefully not tomorrow but next Sat we can slap it back together, actually both engines I'm dealing with should go back together and then he's going to help me stick it back in and mated to the trans and then I'll button up everything else on my own.

Cleaned and prepped...

BTW, obviously these aren't for that engine, these are off the 6.0L LS2 but damn!!! Gotta love hot tanks!!! Almost spotless now and freshly ground for the valves to be slid back in once my seal kit shows up so we can pop new valve seals in them.

Before...

After...

 

[sirhk100]

Well end result was new rod bearings, new rings, honed cylinder, new heads, ground the valves, lapped them, new seals and head gaskets. Have just over 100 miles on it so far and seems to be great!