At my last oil change the guys said that my coolant was horrible so I had them flush it. Well, yesterday I had my oil changed and the guy says the same thing. So I tell him I'll deal with it. I went home and looked it over and the coolant in the plastic fill jug, I don't what it's called, looked worse than what was in the radiator. So I drained it into a coffee can to look at it. Well the two fluids separated and what I saw was the coolant and this dark gray/blackish fluid in there. Looks like oil with the film that it leaves. This car has been notorious for losing coolant for years. every few months I'm adding coolant. Have never found the leak so I have just added when needed. Anybody seen this? I'm thinking head gasket or something like that, but I'm no expert.

Also, have not seen milky oil in the crankcase ever. Don't know if the oil change guys look for that when they change the oil though.

Thanks,

 

I'd say you've got a blown head gasket for sure. Not much else it could be. If you don't have any coolant in your oil, then it's probably not the intake manifold gasket.

Get a compression tester and check each cylinder for consistency. If you have one that's much lower than the others, or if two adjacent cylinders have low compression, it's definitely a head gasket. What's happening is oil is getting blown out the gasket into the water jacket. You should probably be seeing white exhaust smoke, or excessively smoky exhaust.

Hope this helps.

 

Sounds like head gasket too...although you should have some compression gasses escaping into the coolant...

A tell-tale sign is the coolant in the overflow tank bubbling...

Good luck.

 

Haven't noticed any smoke out the tail pipe. Oil, or whatever it is, is in coolant though, not the other way around. Oil on dipstick looks fine. No loss in performance, but this car was never a screamer to begin with.

 

Then it's a one way leak into the coolant. Time to pull the heads off...

 

Okay, so tell me, is this a job for a pro? Or can someone with some aptitude do it on their own? I'm not a mechanic, but have replaced the water pump, alternator, calipers, brake line,...etc.
All little jobs compared to this!!! My friend says I could do it in a weekend. Maybe he could! Would it be apparent once I got the heads off that that was the problem? I would have to send the heads out to be checked and the valves adjusted I assume. Probably replace the rusted valve covers and not put the smog pump back on. Hey, this could be a good thing!!! Built-in excuses to modify! Still a little nervous about digging this deep.

 

It should be apparent by looking at the head gasket where it was leaking. While the heads are off at the very least put in new valve seals and have a valve job done. If ya got the cash have em pocket ported and gasket match the intake and exhaust you're self. I could go on and on but if you're like me, {on a very small budget } then just do what ya gotta do, or can do.

 

Doing the actual swap work would take the whole weekend...don't underestimate it. It will bite you in the *** hard if you don't plan accordingly.

Hopefully, this isn't your daily driver....then you can start anytime. Have the heads checked for warpage/cracks as well...more common than you might think on these castings.

You should be able to do the work yourself though...save a lot of $$$. Just have a lot of Torx especially T-40, T-45 and T-50...and you will be fine