Hey all,
Long time no see, which usually is a good thing because it means things are running good! (:

Here is the latest:

I fire her up in the morning and she starts real good. Runs a bit high until I tap the gas pedal, but overall pretty nice. She drivers pretty good, I can still feel a bit of lag on acceleration, but I can usually ease her past it, or gun it past it. I drive for maybe 30 minutes, get to my destination and turn her off.

Here is where it gets "good". I go to fire her back up maybe 15 minutes later and even though she's warm, it's harder to start than if she's been sitting for 2 weeks (which really isn't that hard). I have to give it lots of gas and hold the key for 10+ seconds and even then it's not promising. White smoke then comes billowing out the tailpipe (a lot) which I can smell; but can't describe at the moment because it's been a bit since I last drove her. I then put it in drive and she'll die at the first hard acceleration, I'll restart, gas it and then kind of ease her into driving again (can take a few miles, but I can still feel the lag).

I did a bit of research, but I would love to hear your ideas. I filled the radiator fluid (because I thought white smoke could have something to do with a leak) but I haven't gone out to check it's level and see what's in the over flow tank to see if it's getting burned off somewhere.

Help!

 

White smoke is indicative of coolant getting into the combustion chamber(s). ... bad head gasket, bad intake manifold gasket, or both.

Bummer.

 

That is what I've been reading. The white smoke goes away after she starts (the 2nd time), it's never constant and never happens on first start up after she sits for a couple days. That's what has had me fooled. I assumed if it was a head gasket or manifold gasket it would be constant white smoke.

How long should a repair like this take?

 

It might be a small leak then when it has sufficiently heated up (and the metal expands) it might be sealing up on its own.

How long? I don't know... how fast are you?

 

I am only able to do small repairs. There is a guy I use who fixes cars as a profession and charges me an hourly rate, so I wanted an idea of the cost based on how long it would take an experienced mechanic to do the job. (:

 

if you are not ready to dive into replacing gaskets quite, yet you can always prolong the inevitable by treating the gaskets that are leaking with a treatment. my favorite is lucas oil treatment. my 64 has bad valve guides.

obviously the oil treatment wont help much on letting coolant into your combustions chamber. but there are other treatments for coolant that do the same thing. none pop to mind

but nothing fixes a coolant leak due to bad or worn gaskets then an overhaul

 

Not a good idea to put off repairs for that. I hope you have a cell phone and towing insurance would be good. Those kind of problems have a way to getting worse the farther you are away from home, ask me how i know . Just parking it and not doing repairs is not a good idea because there may be water sitting on top of a piston doing damage. Good luck, __

 

Oh no, I'm quite ready for the repair. It's only recently gotten bad, I just wanted to be prepared to know what I'd spend on parts. While replacing gaskets is there anything else I should replace/repair? I'm thinking new headers since they are some 43+ years old. (:

 

___Yes and paint the engine then a little more chrome __

__Clean engine , lot's of chrome = better air flow to cool it __


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Haha. Well I'm not big of Chrome. If I replace both baskets, and have already done water pump, carb, thermostat gasket, will I need to replace those again because of having to remove the parts to get to the old gaskets?