Alright I'm already pretty sure my engine is shot. It kicked out on me about a month ago. It runs, but runs like crap. Absolute loss of power, the oil smells like gas, and occasionally I can see a small amount of smoke coming from the dipstick (never heard of that happening before). I was going to take it to a shop and have them put X amount of dollars to get it running, but I'm thinking it's something more critical.

I already bought a new bird, so I'm not looking to keep it. I was thinking about getting it running just to make a couple more bucks out of it. Any opinions?

It's an 89 2.8V6

 

I wouldn't worry about a "little" smoke out of the dipstick...could be blowby--(time for a rebuild) or could be due to thinned out oil from runnig too rich.

You need to start from the beginning, figure out why the fuel is in the crankcase (running rich/bad injectors/bad O2 sensor/etc....) then go from there.

 

yea.. running rich can cause gas to get into the oil.. which if enough gets into it.. it can thin the oil to the point of being useless causeing damage to bearings and other surfaces as the oil can not cushion properly any longer..... so basically find out what is causing the rich state. change oil, and go from there...