Well, folks, the short and the long of it is that I have a 164S which
had been losing coolant last fall, which I'd been topping off with water
until I laid it up for several weeks prior to an unusually cold snap
here in Dec. Brain fade strikes and I get at least a partial engine
freeze. So, when I go and hopefully try to wake up the car, I find it's
blowing exhaust gases into the coolant jacket. Bad omen. But there was
no water in the oil. Looked good on that count, and I hoped that the
only issue might have been fire ring seal I could possibly address with
a re-torque on the 80+k mile engine. I had re-torqued it a k-mile after
I rebuilt it some years ago, and the 80k number is miles subsequent to
re-build. After seeing the exhaust bubbling into coolant, I shut it
down pending re-torque, It wasn't spilling water onto the ground, either.
I'd topped off the coolant with antifreeze when doing the startup test,
and even in the (best) case of having only fire ring seal issues, water
could have been introduced into the crankcase. I see today that the oil
is milky brown from water emulsion. I'm about to pull the valve covers
and attempt a head bolt re-torque, but I'd really appreciate it if
somebody could tell me the most obvious places to look to identify a
cracked head. I'd need to await somewhat warmer weather (March, maybe?)
before pulling the engine, and even pulling the heads would be something
I'd not want to do before then.
I'll be draining the oil, replacing the filter, and flushing the
crankcase with additional oil (possibly the waste oil from another
vehicle's oil change?) prior to attempting to run the engine. Any
comments other than "you stupid so-and-so"? Suggestions? Opinions on
the likelihood of a block crack? I'm speculating here, but I think that
any water I might find under the valve covers would be a direct sign of
a crack between the water jacket into that region. Should I pressurize
the water jacket and look for leaks from the heads into the space under
the valve covers? I'm hoping to reduce the time I might waste prior to
deciding I must pull the heads or the engine for disassembly and
detailed inspection.
Gosh, what a stupid thing to let happen.
Michael
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