The short of it is my car over heated big time and I think I may have spent too much time between the temp gauge pegging and stopping the car. You couldn’t see anything on the road but once I pulled over coolant was pouring out and the engine was smoking.

What I’m trying to find out is if there is a sure fire way to figure out if there’s anything seriously wrong with my engine. How do I figure out if I damage the actual piston rings and walls? I’m going to do a compression test but even if that comes out OK could things still be screwed up, and if I’m low on compression could it be the fault of a blown head gasket? Would I be able to tell by looking at the cylinder walls once the heads are off?

I’m ready to replace the water and oil pumps and change all the gaskets but I just plain can’t afford a full rebuild, which is what I’d like to do anyway. But if it’s going to take a rebuild I don’t want to waste time changing everything now for nothing.

If it helps the long story is that basically piece by piece my whole cooling system broke down. New radiator, thermostat, cooling fan relay and switch, every time something was replaced the cooling problems got better but one day I was driving along and the highway and the gauge started bouncing around, I thought it might just be a sensor or something since the oil pressure gauge had the same problem the week before. Then the needle stopped bouncing around and just went up and pegged. I might have driven just for another 30 seconds or up to 5 minutes I can’t really remember since I was just thinking oh cr@p, over and over again not believing the last part of the cooling system kicked the bucket too. But as soon as I pulled over it’s clear it did. Once towed home I ran it for a few minutes, with the coolant out of the engine and the engine cold it idles fine, no white smoke but with water being pumped in I think some steam is making it out the exhaust.

 

Where was the coolant coming out from? Before spending any money on anything, I 'd pressure check the system. If it doesn't hold, then look at leakdown/comp test, etc, to find the extent of damage, if any.

Things you can't see easily are warps and cracks...and once you start taking aprts in to get checked and fixed, you may as well go all the way.

Good thing is SBC's are pretty tough, if it overheated enough to blow a headgasket, chances are you can get by with replacing the gasket and have a happy life. That's where I'd start.

I've left a lot of coolant on the road in my days, never caused me a rebuild.

 

A small amount of steam out of cold exhaust is normal. It's caused from the condensation in the exhaust getting hot. First thing I would do is a leakdown on all the cylinders.