Place your bets on what's wrong with my motor

[Bliggida]

Hey guys, well I am getting ready to start pulling all the covers off the engine to see what the problem was.

Wondering if you guys had any ideas on what it might be...

At first I noticed a slight smell of coolant, gauge was up around 210 but nothing over that. So I am driving, notice a lack in power. Some small, and faint (what sounds like) valvetrain noise at quarter throttle.
I keep driving and I notice the sound getting louder and moving from just quarter to now half throttle also.
Finally it gets really loud and now sounds off at any RPM. So just as I am ready to pull over, all my gauges are fine except for that 210 - the motor makes a few clunks and dies out. Will turn over slowly but won't restart.
I checked the oil and it got hot.

I'm almost positive it was valve tick. I could be wrong, but I never heard any knocks like you would with a loose rod.

Never had an SES or check gauges light either.

[Tyler]

ill place my bet of 100 bucks that i do not have a single clue :cool:

[ May 20, 2003: Message edited by: Tyler ]</p>

[John_D.]

If the coolant was low, the temp sensor would not read accurately... It would only be reading the steam in the top of the system.

My vote is it lost coolant slowly, eventually got hot and blew out the remaining coolant (which you smelled), you got progressively louder valve clatter from it continuing to overheat with no coolant circulating through the heads, finally it got hot enough to die from the increased friction from everything heat expanding.

Since the block and heads are not aluminum, there's a good chance nothing warped and the head gasket is intact. Especially if you didn't just keep pushing the engine.

Refill and go, if you're lucky... Without having to tear it down. Might be hard to start the first time. After that there's a good chance it will be back to normal. I've had a couple do this along the way.

Find that coolant leak, or at least keep it topped off regularly until you get it fixed. Water pump, or minor head gasket leak, would be the most likely culprits.

[Bliggida]

Well I do have a small coolant leak. But, the reason I wasn't leaning towards that, is because when my coolant is low the gauge will go up and down between 230 and 185 back and forth, recirculating as the fan kicks on and off...but this time it stayed at 210, not too hot, but hotter than I normally run.

I'll refill it and try to see if it will restart, but the actual engine oil was smoking. And when I checked the coolant level when it died on me and I was getting it to register.

Thanks for your info though, and keep them coming.