Driving home from work in 84 pontiac

>driving home from work in 84 pontiac
>car suddenly loses power, won't accelerate or shift (automatic)
>shuts off all the way
>temp gauge skyrockets, oil pressure gauge drops like a rock
>white steam pouring out from under hood
>coolant reservoir tank bubbling over
>won't crank at all
>firebird is kill

How fucked am I? I'm pretty sure it's head gaskets and the cars fucked, but my dad seems to think it may be a failed thermostat or water pump. It was dark and we haven't checked the oil yet or pulled plugs because I work early tomorrow, but based on these symptoms what do u guys think? I'm a pessimist so I think the heads blew and the car is scrap now. Shame is it had ran fine for 12k since I bought it and had 92k miles total, I was about to try to trade to a fellow Veeky Forumstist for a Honda

Sounds like it overheated ad seized up. Try putting a wrench on the crank pulley nut and see if you can spin the engine.

sounds like your problem is that you bought an american car.

The crazy thing is it happened all at once, all the gauges were reading normal and then just suddenly putt-putt-putt-putt engine dies, look at gauges and physically watch temp shoot up and oil pressure dropped down. When I pulled over the coolant reservoir was literally bubbling over and hissing spraying pressurised coolant all over the place (from the non pressurized reservoir tank) I'm very limited mechanically but my understanding is that failed gaskets could allow pressurized and hot oil to seep into my cold 13lb coolant system causing a temp spike and pressurising the return line to the reservoir accounting for the boiling and hissing of high pressure and heat, as well as the sudden drop in oil pressure since it all escaped to the coolant passageways? Didn't get a good look because steaming coolant vapors but my reservoir looked way murky,

Bump for opinions/advice

I rarely drove the car anymore since I got a camaro, I dont really want to put more money into it. Anyone scrapped a car before? Do u get like 200 bucks or something? What if I wanted to pull the engine to keep for disassembly just to learn more about engines and scrap the body

sounds legit

Really? I kind of just put that all together based on a limited understanding of how parts should work together on a system? Is that what actually happens?

Sounds like the water pump could have siezed up, if the belts were in good enough condition it could drag the whole engine down. I've never heard of happening though ever.
Odd about the temp spike though, you could have just had a straight coolant leak, and too high PSI cap on your old tired cooling system.

You can still get fresh engines from GM for about 1500 dollarydoos, if the body is in good shape, why not replace the engine?

probably thermostat

>sudden drop in oil pressure
if
>shuts off all the way
>temp gauge skyrockets, oil pressure gauge drops like a rock
is true, then no, you wouldn't have oil pressure, since the engine isn't turning.

It was still puttering to a halt when the oil dropped and temp skyrocketed but I see what u mean, the oil pump wouldn't be going so of course there would be now pressure.

If thermostat is stuck

Coolant temp sensor that is after the thermostat will not see water

Then temp sensor will only see block temp

And then your engine will build heat until it fails.

That's why most thermostats have a bypass, but if you baby it, you will never see it ooverheat either because the bypass may be good enough, then that gets clogged.

My dad had a third gen camaro and he says theirs like a kill switch that shuts the engine if it gets toout hot. That would explain that I guess, the sudden temperature drop, and the overflowing reservoir.

So what's the plan of attack? Compression test plus check oil for chocolate milkshake?

Had the same thing happen to my 79 TA. Turned out to be a blown head gasket, and we later found out the block had a crack in it.

I was able to let it sit for a while and eventually drive it home, but my temp gauge was at 230 the entire trip.

If that's the case I'm literally just gonna scrap the car. I might keep the engine just to tinker and disassemble for experience. Not worth putting money into it

Don't be a fag and throw in a V8 of some sort

Depends on how attached you are to the car. On mine, I liked it enough that I just swapped to another small block. It was about $4k for the parts and engine.

If you're in cali though, you probably won't have that luxury. I actually bought mine from a guy in California because laws were making it too expensive for him to maintain over there.

I already have pic related In another car, don't need to 10mpg cars when I commute 50 miles a day

It's a dope car it's pretty clean inside and out but fuck man its the not so great chevy 305 v8. Also I need to retain all the original emissions shit in order to pass smog, plus it's computer controlled ignition

Don't scrap it man. Throw it up on CL, someone will save it.

If its in decent shape, just sell it to someone. Some idiot will come along and say Oh shit I used to drive one of those/I love those cars, and they'll have to have it.

Doubtful, I'm in California so idk what it is about here but even when it was running perfectly with

My dad drilled a small hole in his thermostat when he had one of these. So even if the stat doesn't open there will always be come coolant able to get through and prevent overheating and shut down.

You are jumping the gun here mate. You haven't mentioned oil emulsion in the coolant recovery bottle or under the cap, so I am not sure why you jumped to oil in the cooling galleries so quickly.

The shutdown can also be vapourlock where liquid fuel vapourises in the fuel delivery line to the carburettor. When my TA overheated on a hot North Queensland day the carb vapourlocked and the engine shut down. Cooling the engine and fuel delivery system over about a half hour allowed me to start again but as soon as she got hot, vapour build up hit again.

At this stage we are all just pissing into the wind and seeing where it lands. You need to;

Follow user's advice and throw a ratchet/breaker bar on the harmonic balancer and rotate the crankshaft. If it does not rotate, chances are the piston has grabbed the cylinder wall and seized. If if rotates, this has not occurred.

Remove the radiator cap while cool and inspect the radiator. You are looking for a brown, ice cream like emulsion of water and lube oil. If this is present, most likely the head gasket(s) have failed.

Identify why the engine won't crank. Is the starter motor engaging? Can you hear the starter relay close, followed by the solenoid on the starter? The engine may not be seized though an overheat can destroy the starter motor solenoid or bendix.

Drain the lube oil. If there is emulsion coming out with the lube oil, there is coolant present in the lubricating system. If glitter comes out...... it's probably rebuild time.

If the engine does turn over but won't fire, pull the CCC HEI diz cap and inspect. The CCC HEI is not the best distributor. I killed mine with heat.

At the end of the day it's a SBC. If it has done the head or head gasket, it's not a dealbreaker at all. Replace with a set of 601 castings. It's only the air cleaner, carb body, manifold, oil pressure sender, exhaust manifolds and accessory brackets to be removed in order to remove/replace the cylinder heads.

Best of luck to you mate.

This
now

>don't need 10mpg cars when I commute 50 miles a day
What a dumbass why did you even buy that?

That wasn't for coolant passage per se. It was to let air by so as to make purging the cooling system of air easier.

That's basically the game plan for the weekend when I'm off, I work in a shop with a bunch of diesel mech (I know it's not quite the same but whatever) plus I've been scouring the fuck out of forums and my haynes

Because the firebird got 23-27mpg on 87 octane pump gas because of the 4speed OD tranny and then I only drove the other one on weekends. Now I have to DD my weekend car until I fix the bird or buy a shitbox.

It's not quite the same but the Otto cycle is the Otto cycle, whether it's a low compression wet manifold petrol donk or a high pressure direct injected donk. I'm sure they will be of help.

Again, hope it goes well for you mate.

Thanks man I appreciate it. As for oil immulion like I said the reservoir was bubbling over and appeared murky but it's also 30 years old and had stains on the inside so I won't tell until I flush the radiator and drain the oil pan and all that jazz. The master mech dude at work basically just told me to pull the thermostat, drop it in boiling hot water to see if it opens and then go from there

Don't drop it in the boiling water as you can shock the wax pellet and cause a failure. Put the thermostat in the cup/pot as you are heating it up. The sudden shock of going from room temperature to boiling water may cause a serviceable thermostat to fail. Tridon thermostats will commonly spit the wax pellet from the sense bulb when shocked.

Hopefully the murky fresh water / coolant is just that; murky coolant from an old recovery bottle.

At least you have some time set aside over the weekend that you can hop in and see what is going on. I'm sure there will be a few of us keeping an eye out for a follow up thread.