I took my car into the shop because it has a coolant leakage problem. They tell me they found hydrocarbons in the cooolant and its a head gasket. Assuming this is right, am I doing damaged driving it? Im not going to take it on any long trips (more than a few miles) until I get this fix... just wondering if I am doing any damage in the mean time. I may have a 350 swapped in, depending on how much I will have to pay for labor...

thanks

 

if your running antifreeze any leakage is not good, it wipes the oil off the metal surfaces. No lube no go! If it is showing white smoke out the exhaust, very bad.
If you can run water, flush system out good to get rid of antifreeze, and now smoking out exhaust you might get by for a while. If you loosen the radiator cap to lower the pressure in coolant system it will also help.

 

if your running antifreeze any leakage is not good, it wipes the oil off the metal surfaces. No lube no go! If it is showing white smoke out the exhaust, very bad.
If you can run water, flush system out good to get rid of antifreeze, and now smoking out exhaust you might get by for a while. If you loosen the radiator cap to lower the pressure in coolant system it will also help.

 

It would be best to fix the problem immediately, unless you need an excuse to pull the engine out. Antifreeze can destroy the main bearings on the crankshaft. Has your oil level suddenly gone up?

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90 TBI 305 Formula
Original Owner
Auto Trans, T-Tops
Completely Stock Except:
--Flow Cooler water pump
--180 T-stat

 

My oil level has not gone up, hasn't changed color, and doesn't have any smell of coolant that I can detect... Oh, and it does occasocally(sp) smoke white after its been sitting a while. It doesn't always do it though. And it also gets very hard to start after it sits 2/3 days as well.