I got this car ('86 2.8L w/60k, clean in/out) in '98 for free. One female owner (couldn't pass it up). It had 9 quarts of muck in the engine. The intake manifold failed and her mechanic told her it was the oil pump...go figure... So i got a 50k mile engine and used just the new bottom end. I had my heads rebuilt. Anyway for the last 4 years, it has given me no problems. No oil or water leaks, until Saturday. My overflow was empty, I looked for a leak and found none. Sunday morning it was empty again now I said I better change the oil, and I found the green stuff. I put in Bars-All...maybe I'll get lucky or it's back to the parts store...

 

try to drive that thing as little as possible, don't need all tha tcrap eating away at your bearings.

Just me, but I'd use some engine flush next oil change (real soon hopefully). Might need to pull heads & verify if slow leak or not

 

isolate that leak and repair it quickly before you wreck your bottom end. It may be a lot of work, but it's better and cheaper than having to buy a new motor.

May I ask how many miles you put on the motor after it was rebuilt?

If you pull the heads off, have them checked at a machine shop to be sure that they are flat and smooth on both the block-side and the intake-side, to verify no warpage.

Felpro gaskets have a good reputation for being high quality; don't cheap out on the gaskets, and don't let a mechanic cheap out if you take it somewhere to be done. Good gaskets are great insurance.

Good luck on that. Be careful with the motor, and change that oil often.

 

About 12k miles and I used Fel-Pro... Is there anyway to tell if it's the intake or head before pulling apart, I don't think so...

 

a leak-down test is the only way. with compressed air, the chances of finding the leak are huge. you might as well do both since you have to do most of the work to get the intake off anyway, why not do the extra hour of labor to pull the heads and make sure that you won't have to do the head gasket again in the semi-near future.

 

Do the whole thing.
Head & intake gaskets and new exhaust gaskets.
Why
Ya need to!
Cheap insurance.
Add in new timing chain IF ya feel he need. But with recent work done it seems that may be moot.
Or it may be time to upgrade to a 3.4.
You do have options but perhaps not much time.