Greetings all,
My tale begins on a high note. Some background: subject is '91 carat
autobox, 180K miles total. I recently replaced leaky head and head gasket
after 13 years and 120K miles. Replacement head was used with approx. 100K,
checked it for leaks using " poor man's method " I poured pure propanol in
all the openings of the head and it did not leak.
Oil pressure was measured a year ago and had between 5 and 10 psi at idle
normal running temps. Van ran very well, and passed Maryland emissions last
week. Mileage was improved since head replacement. I thought all was
relatively well.
Then last weekend I'm driving 65 mph on Capitol beltway in Md. far left
lane. I thought the van seemed a bit sluggish but I was going up a hill so
did not worry. Suddenly, I feel a slight jerk/miss in the engine and van
begins to slow. There was no banging or knocking or any untoward noises,
but when I looked in the rear view mirror, I see the beltway engulfed in
blue smoke from my van. Luckily its a Sunday morning and traffic is light
and I manage to maneuver the van to the right side of the highway right at
an exit. Time elapsed at this point is about 60 seconds. As I get on the
off ramp, I notice the coolant level light is blinking and I quick turn off
the ignition and I manage to coast to a  safe spot off the road. Naturally
I'm curious as to what has just happened. I look underneath first and see
some slight dripping from above, there's no smoke or steam coming out of
the engine. I remove the engine cover and don't see anything obvious, no
rods sticking out of the crankcase or oil covering everything. I do notice
some brown frothy stuff near the breather tower however, so I check the oil
level. Here's the low note. The crankcase was full of an oil antifreeze
homogenate, so something obviously had catastrophically failed inside.
After I had the poor victim towed home, I drained the crankcase and
collected a couple gallons of the evil mixture. The coolant seemed to be
draining from the whole system because I popped off the bleeder bolt from
the radiator and the flow increased. Must be a  big hole somewhere. I
popped off the valve covers and everything seemed in place no loose rocker
arms or springs. There was the foul goo in one side, almost none in the
other.  Anyway, does the List wisdom think there's hope to salvage this sad
powerplant? I know it will have to be completely disassembled. I'm
concerned that the cat may have been trashed by all the oil burned through
it any insight on that? The ATF was uncontaminated by the way. Might this
be a failed oil cooler by chance? Any and all comments, strategy etc
welcome.
Thanks,
Rick Koller