Blown head gasket help

[71Firebird]

My son's 76 Firebird came with a Cheby straigh 6, it was an $800 first car...been coming along OK, Saturday night he called and I had to go get him, looks like the head gasket blew. I'm really a noob, other than the stuff I've picked up here on the borads, no real mech experience...but oil and coolant are coming out from the head/valve cover area, and you can see both, checked the oil aqnd it wasn't malting shake looking, just reg...but he said that the rad got hot on the right side (drivers) side (after stopping due to steam and smoke) and that it was not on left...so it sounds like coolant stopped circulating...water pump failure?..which lead to the head gasket blowing?...we filled the rad and did get it to start, but only for a minute...
Any help, advice, steering in the right direction would be great...
Thanks
ps. We've already talked about dropping a 400 in it...lol....he doesn't have the budget right now.

[71Firebird]

Well I guess I'll go along with whatever the repair shop says...car didn't run long once it happened...should I expect that I'll have to have the head machined?

[Jack Gifford]

Sorry that nobody responded, but it's anybody's guess at this point. I guess if it were mine, I'd first look for why it doesn't run. If it isn't due to something minor, like wet ignition, then I'd have a bad feeling that it must have been hot enough to cause internal damage- maybe more serious (and probably more expensive) than just a head gasket. Does the engine turn over okay by hand?

[71Firebird]

Yeah, I think it's kinda like finding a lump on yourself and asking everyone if they thinks it's serious....we didn't try and turn over the engine by hand, it did turn over easy by trying to start it and ran, just bad and sputtered...it's still at the shop and we should hear today....mostly wondering, since I'm such a noobie, the most common things that will need to be done. It didn't seem like any real internal broken sounds when it started back up, and we ran it for maybe 30 seconds and saw the oil/coolant coming out. he did shut it down pretty quick when it happened.
Thanks for the reply...I'm hoping it isn't the same cost as a total rebuild, budget is, well, there's no budget for this really at all!...lol...
Thanks again, I'll post as soon as we hear what the mech says...fingers are crossed...

[63pig]

I have some experience with blown headgaskets, having just done the same thing to my 400 about 3 weeks ago.

Normally, when you blow a head gasket, the first clue is that your car runs like its bogged down, loses a great deal of its power, and starts to spew white smoke (its more like thick steam and smells sweet of coolant) out of the exhaust as the coolant is getting into the cylinders. Your Temp guage will start to rise as you car starts to eat the coolant and at that point its time to call the tow truck.

A quick way to isolate the cylinder(s) affected is to pull the spark plugs...if one plug looks obviously cleaner than the rest, or it has white powder on it or anti-freeze...then you can likely determine the cylinder.

Budget is everything. I decided to pull my engine and rebuild it completely, only because it was the right time for me. I could have simply pulled the heads and replaced the gaskets, but I did not know the history of repairs to the engine, and opted for the complete rebuild.

In your case, if the motor is cooked, it may be cheaper to replace the engine with a good used one. Of course, if its the original motor and the car is in great shape, then I'd keep and rebuild the original.

Good Luck with it!