Blown Head Gasket
 

I was driving on the expressway today doing about 70-75 when the head gasket suddenly blew on my engine. I pulled over and the oil was about 5 inches too full on the dipstick and the radiator had nothing in it.

I'm wondering what damages I should be looking for. I plan on pulling the heads first then deciding on pulling the whole block or not. I feel that I may need to pull the whole thing as it dumped all the coolant in, lost oil pressure and then locked up from 3500 rpm's in less than half a second.

What do you experts think?

Yep, pull it. If it locked up I would be looking at the bearings. Not good!

Head gasket / Pontiac Gregg
 

You caught the motor in time, the bearings will be fine.Well, maybe not, I reread the post and saw the lock up part.
IF you are running 6X or 4X heads, they take a slightly shorter head bolt in a couple of places. Call me and I'll walk you through the details.

1-303-776-0877
Pontiac Gregg

Head gaskets don't 'suddenly blow'. Something caused it. From reading this , it seems you are telling the whole story.

how many miles since the heads have been off? were they retorqued?
Was the motor running hot?
Was it detonating?

First, I'd pull the plugs and then see if you can rotate the motor with a breaker bar on the crank bolt. It'll probably turn over. Do that first.
Then, depending on what happens above.
I'd pull the heads first and leave the short in the chassis. Drain the oil and look at it.
It is also hard to believe all that happend in under a half of a second.

1. The engine has just over 2000 miles on it. I honestly do not know if I ever retorqued the heads as I built this engine well over 3 years ago and I was only 15 at the time.

2. I only have the idiot lights that do work but the temp light was not on at all for the first 250 miles of the trip. Even while sitting in a gridlock.

3. I have never experienced detonation (not exactly sure what it would sound like), but I do not think this it was happening as the engine was running fine and making no odd noises.

I also thought that it was strange to happen so suddenly as from what I've read, usually people seem to lose coolant mysteriously or will have smoke out of the tailpipes. It never lost and coolant and I had nothing unusual until all at once I had loads of steam out the back and the oil light came on almost in the same instant the steam started. As soon as I saw the steam and the oil light, I pushed the clutch in and the engine stalled immediately and when I pulled over and popped the hood and checked the dipstick, it was already quite a bit overfull.

I'm running 7k3 heads on this engine. The bearings would not be too big of a deal but I'm more worried that the sudden nature of this may have damaged the rods or pistons as they were factory pieces(not too strong from what I read here). Thank you for the offer of help, I may take you up on that once I get around to taking it apart and see what damages there are. I guess I'll be making good use of the 3day weekend..

My timing cover corroded, which had a similar ending. You might consider this possibility before pulling the heads. Do you remember if your timing cover was pitted when you built the engine or is there a chance it corroded through? I hole there will fill up the crankcase with coolant very fast. Seems like a blown head gasket would look like a relatively small leak, and it does seem odd it would be able to fill the crankcase so quickly.

I also gave this some consideration but I do not think this was the case as I had all the smoke out the tailpipes which means it was getting into the combustion chambers somehow. Also add in the fact that it stalled out and the starter wouldn't turn it much at all which I think it could still turn over if just the oil pan had been filled.

Ya, the white smoke would only happen that way..

Maybe it didn't turn over just because it was hot... have you tried cranking it again cold?

Hope it has a good ending for you. Post an update when you figure it out.

With all the coolant getting into the engine it is quite possible the engine hydro-locked just as you shoved in the clutch. As Steve said, pull the plugs and see if it will rotate and how much if any water comes out of the plug holes.

Stewart

So far its only bad news. I pulled the plugs and tried turning the crank bolt. Will not turn either way, its locked up solid.

Also it looks as if there was a collision in #5 as the spark plug was damaged and hard to remove. Ill post a picture of it.

So now it seems that I'm going to be removing the engine for sure.

Valve came apart.
 

I started taking things apart today and I knew it was going to be bad when I removed the valley pan to see that the camshaft had broken into 3 pieces and one part is wedging the crank. I also noticed pieces of piston and rings up in the valley cover. Not good.

When I took the drivers head off, I saw that the #5 exhaust valve had broken (factory 2 piece valve I'm assuming?) It seems that when it came apart that the piston completly obliterated from the rpm's I was turning at the time, and all the coolant came in because the wrist pin dug a hole in the bore.

Complete destruction of the block. Looks like I'll be in the market for a new engine.:(

Picture 1 shows the broken camshaft

Pic 2 shows the valve head missing. (chunk of metal above the chamber is a piece of the piston that was stuck where the valve should have been)

Picture 3 shows how none of the piston was left on the pin.

Wow, that's the worst kersplosion I've seen in awhile. Do you think it dropped the valve first, or broke the cam first?

I'm thinking that the valve just broke first. I'm not really an expert though.

As my dad told me, when I break things, I know how to do it right..

At least you didn't blow the head gasket.
:eek:
:D

What brand of plug is that?

lol.

Its an AC Delco plug. the numbers on it say R45TSX

A very small consolation, is it not?

Stewart

The only thing I don't understand is that it made no odd noises at all. The smoke happened, then the oil light when I pushed the clutch and it stalled. Did not make any racket of breaking parts at all. Unless my exhaust is too loud to hear it? My radio was off at the time.

I'm very sorry to read of the loss of your motor. It having only 2,000 and no gauges means-

1. something was not put together correctly
2. things were not monitored correctly

I don't want to rag on you so do not take it the wrong way. I'm posting to help, not hurt.
This is something you need to learn from.

Valves do not normally come apart. Cast pistons will disintegrate and often take the motor with it when something hits it or during detonation. If you had forged pistons, the damage would have been minor.
Cast pistons act like glass. They are durable to a point,then, when pushed beyond their limits will shatter like glass as your did. A forged piston can absorb punishment. If your valve came apart, the forged piston would usually absorb it with damage but, would stay together.
Were these used cast pistons? If so, you were taking a big chance.

ALWAYS re torque head gaskets. The center bolts especially come loose over a short time. A few thousand miles was a good indicator.

Learn from your mistakes and do a smarter, better engine build. This has happened to me and , I am sure many others. It's a bummer to say the least but, you have to learn from it and move on.
Very sorry to see what happened to you.

sorry for the double post, not sure what happened....