Earlier today I stopped at a stoplight and noticed a large plume of smoke/steam coming from the passenger side hood/windshield gap of my Firebird, and it also started running real crappy. It was idling all right but it was rumbly and sounded terrible.. So I park it, kill it and notice a pool of oily antifreeze forming about under the firewall, and the smoke/steam was coming from around the back of the engine near the A/C drier, but I couldn't tell what from. The Antifreeze drip stopped when the car was off, and started back up once I turned it back on, pretty severely (1-2 drips a second), and the exhaust was extremely thick and white, like steam... I'm thinking I either blew a head gasket, or a water cooling gasket in the intake manifold, but I'm having a hard time convincing myself that would cause the oil/antifreeze puddle as well. Any ideas as to what else the problem could be, or ways to verify a blown gasket without too much disassembly? Any help appreciated

 

off hand sounds like head gasket.

 

i would agree it sounds alot like a headgasket ....have you done a compression check yet ?????.....check you oil also and see if you have any mix in it of water and oil ...

 

A leakdown test would be most helpful in verifying a head gasket leak. What appears to be a milkshake in your oil pan would also narrow it down to intake manifold or head gasket. If the oil is contaminated, drain it ASAP before internal corrosion becomes a problem... but keep in mind it may already be too late since it was driven as such.

 

I checked out the oil pan first thing and there was no milkiness on the dipstick. I haven't done a compression check yet, gonna do that tomorrow. Also I was wondering if this could possibly be a hairline crack in the block or head? And could you tell me what you mean by leakdown test?

 

not sure how far burried our coolant lines are, but i would think that a minor crack in the block wouldn't result in coolant leaking all over the place...

A leak down test is essentially like a compression test, but you'll push air into the cylinder when that cylinder is on it's compression stroke w/ valves closed, then you'll try to find where your air is laking out....because you're suspecting a headgasket, open your radiator cap and see if you see bubbles coming through to the surface, this would indicate which cylinder is allowing air to be forced into the coolant passages, if you hear the sound of air coming through a different sparkplug hole, then the bad headgasket is between the two cylinders where the air is leaking. a leakdown can be used at other times when your compression is bad also, it'll let you konw why compression is so low, aka....air throug the oil level tube = bad rings allowing air into the pan...through the intake manifold (can be hard to hear on some engines as they're alot of ducting...aka F.I.) = poorly seating intake valve, through exhaust = same for exhaust valve.

 

Okay, I think I get it.. Like hook up an air compressor to the cylinder or something right?

 

Air compressor with a gauge and some kind of on/off valve (possibly a regulator) attached to part of a compression tester.. yeah. Simple tool with a whole lot of functionality.
http://vmaxoutlaw.com/tech/leakdown_tester.htm

 

Today I did a compression check on all 6 cylinders with all the spark plugs out... Everything came out normal, 1 cylinder was low (90psi), but it was on the wrong side of the V, so I don't think its related. I suspected that the back passenger side cylinder had the problem since the spark plug was pretty wet, its compression was normal, but when I tested the next cylinder, antifreeze was clearly spraying from the back passenger cyl. I took off my radiator cap and it vented off quite a bit of pressure. (I think the overflow line was blocked by the radiator cap, because I couldn't repeat this the next time, and instead got bubbles in the overflow tank. If the cooling system was pressurized, maybe it caused coolant to spray back into the cylinder once I took the compression checker off, because the cylinder didn't spray antifreeze anymore after I opened the cap.)

So I know this means my cylinder is leaking into the cooling lines, but does it verify a head gasket? Could it still be a cracked head/block or an intake manifold gasket? And how come I still had normal compression? I assume its because its a small crack/hole wherever it is.

 

TS, cool, thanks for the link! I always wanted one, but didn't want to spend $80 for it. Maybe I'll give this a shot, especially since all I need to buy is a second gauge.

And it does seem like a head gasket to me; especially since steam is coming out of the exhaust- unless the block is severely cracked!