Blown head gasket.. or not?

[RC_slow_dsm]

My profile is up to date.

A few weeks ago I let my car idle for about 45 minutes and it overheated. It may have been overheating for up to 15 minutes before I noticed ( I was not in the car ). I drained the oil recently and found coolant in the oil. My car does not smoke besides a bit of oil to my knowledge. I checked the coolant/oil cooler on the oil filter housing and it held pressure, so it's not blown. I took the head off the car and this is what I found:

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The head gasket shows no signs of being blown. The upper right and upper left head studs were a little loose coming out., no more than 3 threads. Could this have caused a coolant leak into an oil passage, or do ARP head studs always come out of the block when the nut is loosened?

Also notice cylinder #1.

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It's not like the other cylinders obviously. Is this a sign of burning coolant? My head could have been loose or warped on one side due to the overheating. It's at the machine shop right now being checked, I should hear back about it in a couple days.

The head looks ok structure wise. I don't see any cracks but it's being vacuum tested.

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Also, I was a bit concerned with these scuffs on my cylinder walls.

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Anyone have an idea? the motor has 2,000 miles on the rebuild and I can't hear any piston slap.

I will update this thread as results come back from the machine shop. Until then, does anyone have any suggestions to why I had coolant in my oil?

 

[WILOWNU]

having a similar problem, but i havent gotten as far as you just yet. my head is still attatched to the block. I keep going through coolant like nothing else (about a gallon a day). my engine doesnt smoke but i smell anti-freeze really strong when I drive. Im assuming I have a bad hg leak. I will post up pics of mine when I get it tore apart. maybe between both our cars we can figure this out.

 

[teamdsm95]

definitely leaking into cylinder 1. that is burn mark from something other than fuel. possibly overheating that long could have warped the head? so burning coolant is a possibility. if the studs were loose then coolant could be leaking into oil passages.

 

[BrokenTsi]

I doubt the studs have anything to do with it. did you at least do a compression check before you tore the head off?

sometimes arp headstuds will come loose when loosening the nuts. They are only supposed to be tightened hand tight anyways when installed i believe.

 

[MadScientist92]

3 things come to mind when I see that.
1. blown or messed up head gasket
2. Warped or cracked head
3. Cracked sleeve (never seen it on a DSM though)
just things to look into.

 

[busted_4g63]

I have the same marking on my number one cylinder wall. Mine came from a bad ring. And theres only about 200 hundred miles on my block. And when you took the head off did any of the nuts feel more lose then the others?

 

[RC_slow_dsm]

I get the head results from the machine shop tomorrow, so i will post exactly what is wrong with it

I didn't compression check it before hand, I was eager to dig into the motor and I didn't want to run the engine with coolant in the oil it any longer than I had to. I was sure it was the head gasket, but it worried me a little bit when i tore the head off to see a good gasket . I also had to pull my oil pan off to fix a leak. When I drained the oil, the coolant was still separated rather than mixed in like a milkshake with the oil, so that is a good sign..

I did finger tighten the studs when I initially installed them, the ones around cylinder #1 were more loose than any of the others when I pulled the head off. I did re-torque them to 100ft lbs after a couple hours of heat cycling, was I supposed to do it a 3rd time? None of the nuts felt significantly looser than any of the others.

Also, the marks on my cylinder walls were from piston slap. My piston - cylinder wall clearances checked out decently so it must've just been during break-in.

 

[RC_slow_dsm]

And.. the machine shop says: head is fine. I'm getting it resurfaced for an MLS gasket (didn't do that before) but from what I can see the head just came a little loose on one side. I also had 2 leaking valve seats, nothing to do with the coolant in oil problem though. Could the rough head surface cause a leak...?

 

[blcknspo0ln]

Both the block and head need to be resurfaced correctly in order to run an MLS with no leakage. Other's have gotten away with it, but taking that chance is up to you.

 

[RC_slow_dsm]

Is there a way to tell if the block was resurfaced for an MLS? I don't remember if I had it done that way, I remember mentioning it to my machinist though.

 

[msbweiland]

I'll bet there is some piston skirt damage. There shouldn't be any contact like that on your cyl walls. From my experience with diesels and larger trucks thats pretty common with overheating. I'd check your compression when you put it back together. Lucky it didn't sieze up.