Got my Blackstone Labs report back. As I suspected coolant in the oil. Lots of metals present indicated bearings are going. Have had a mysterious coolant leak so I will now assume my head is cracked, 118k miles. Oil pressure at hot idle is still 14-15 psi so she still has life. I love this vehicle. Need a ball park cost to pull it, replace the head and rebuild the internals. Hoping that’s cheaper than a long block. Comments, pot shots and ridicule appreciated.

 

You may want to contact a local NAPA or other parts store and inquire if they can refer you to a shop that does rebuilds.

Good Luck...

 

I was in the same boat a few months ago. I am just about wrapped up with putting my motor back in. My advice, which is what I did, is to find a local machine shop that also assembles engines. To completely tear my old leaky motor down to the block, machine it, and build back with all new internals was $2100. That was by a very reputable shop.

 

If the head is cracked that may be all you need to replace, you can do a compression test to determine the overall health of the engine.

 

You got ok hot idle oil pressure, but what is it hot at speed? you want a bare minimum of about 10 psi per 1000 rpm. What is pressure and rpm on highway when in third gear, fully warmed up? If you see 40 psi at 3000 rpm, you are ok for instance.

Coolant leaking..., well it might be one of those bad late model heads, or a head gasket.

You say metal,in the oil, ok, that happens, how much do you see when you drain her? How many miles on that oil?

Maybe take a photo to post of the oil drain pan showing the metal you found? Lets see, an engine with lots of miles on the oil may indeed have metal in it. Do you see bearing chunks, or is it all a fine metal bits?

How about dropping the oil pan so you can examine the bearings? check side play, pull a bearing cap to inspect the bearing shell?

If bearings are not horribly gone, if oil pressure is greater than 10 psi per 1000 rpm when full hot, if leakdown test shows good rings....Then If I were me, which I am, I would pull the head, if it is the known leaking type of head, Id replace it, new head gasket and good to go. if not a cracked head, well then new gasket, maybe lap the valves (leak down test on valves would be good to do first, so you know if the valves should be lapped or not. if you got the crack prone head, just get rid of it and get a good head.


Now down the road the motors does die, needing full rebuild then you already got a new head which can be put on the rebuild block.

how much coolant is in oil? is oil foamy as when watered down? how much coolant you losing from the system every 1000 miles or so?

My bud had the bad head, constant coolant loss, you could see the green stuff ooze out the cracked head by peering thru the filler hole. pretty bad crack, but oil pressure was good, so he put a new head on and that was near 4 years ago, many happy miles since.




Lets see your metal in oil photo!

good luck

 

Hot oil pressure at highway speeds is 43-45 psi. Oil is not foamy on the dipstick or under filler cap. Been losing appx 36oz of coolant every 1000 miles. Coolant system pressure test holds pressure for over 30 minutes, did it twice to make sure. Blackstone Labs report was done on oil that had 680 miles on.

Element. Iron 41/25 41 ppm my vehicle. 25 universal average
Copper. 13/4
Lead. 57/2
Potassium 351 ppm my vehicle 4 universal average This is coolant in the oil.