I am currently driving a 91 F150 that the rings have gone bad in and the head gasket is bad hense leaking antifreeze into the oil, not much but a little. I need this truck to last me another month before i can have it rebuilt. Is there a certain oil i can use to help get this truck to last me until the middle of January or am i pretty much SOL?

Any help is appreciated, or if i should post this question elsewhere please let me know.

 

Personal Opinion, you're pretty much SOL. If you really are talking a matter of weeks until you get it rebuilt, you could try some Bars Leaks in the coolant to try and seal the gasket a little bit and reduce leakage in to the oil. But then if it doesn't seal it you would be getting that junk in the oil as well. Personally I really hate that stuff as it clogs things up but for a couple of weeks it might be ok. You would have to do a very thorough coolant flush before it putting it all back together after the rebuild though.
As for oil, a thicker oil i.e. 10W-30 may help a little but you probably are just gonna have to resign yourself to the fact that it's going to burn it until the rebuild. It might just pay to drain the oil once or twice and change it with any good Dino at $1-2/qt and just not change the filter to save a little money and still get the coolant laden oil out of the crankcase and get good stuff in it. That would be what I would do keeping in mind that I am going to rebuild the engine in 4 weeks. Depending on how bad the gasket is I would probably skip the Bars Leaks.
Just my humble opinion, what do the rest of you guys think?

 

I am currently running 10W30 in this truck, as for the gasket leak it is not bad, in fact only once in awhile will it appear on my oil dipstick so i think i'll hold off on the Bars. Thanks for your input, i'm curious to know what others think as well.

 

If it's not too cold, try going to a 15w50 Oil and change it every two weeks. I would save a sample of the oil and have it tested. If you can't test it now, save it in a clean glass jar until you can test it so it will tell you how bad the damage is. My understanding is that the coolant breaks down the oil viscosity so you want to start with a higher number.

If the coolant leak is really bad, then you will be better off not driving at all.

 

I dont believe the coolant is leaking very much because I only see it on the dipstick once every week. Can i run that oil weight if it's around 30 degree's?

 

20W-50 will work fine at 30F. I'd go ahead and try Bars Leaks too.

Jim

 

I'll give it a shot, i love this site i've gotten great results and appreciate advise you've given.

 

You guys are awesome. I can't give out any more gold stars so here...[font color=gold]* * * *[/font] I had a reply ready to post but lost my ISP connection for awhile, so saved it to Notepad. I didn't have as much info as we do now, but I guess it's worth posting if only so you can disagree with me, LOL!

Kind'a depends on what you're trying to remedy and your winter temperatures. Is it blowing a huge ammount of smoke or is the compression so low that it's really weak?

A single grade 30 or 40 weight oil may help build compression a little just because of it's extra viscousnes. If that helps the rings seal a little better it may reduce smoking somewhat too.

40 weight is good for down to 40*F and 30 weight is good for down to 32*F sustained temperatures without the aid of a block heater. So if you have weather that gets below freezing and stays there, you may want to stay with the 10w30 as Buckarcher suggested.

I too would shy away from the Bars-Leak. It usually won't seal off a blown head gasket and it could give you some radiator repair bills once you engine is overhauled.

In any case, I would treat it like it had to last another whole year. You just never know what can come up to delay your plans for overhaul and then the last thing you need is a broke down truck. As long as it's not ready to throw a rod, you'd be surprised how long they can linger before they finally die.

If the head gasket leak gets worse in the meantime, then I would change the oil and filter more frequently. Find the cheapest oil and filter you can get so you can afford to do it often. Water in the oil is never good, but in this case it won't be disasterous as long as you keep an eye on it and change it more frequently. Just don't let the water contamination build up to the point where the oil becomes a thick mousse.

Knowing now how low the temp gets, I agree with everyone's multigrade suggestion.

Good luck Border. Nice to know you have a support group, aye?

Scott

 

Well i'm in MN so it gets cold but right now the temps are staying right around 30 degree's. I think i will actually stay away from the Bars because i dont want further repair bills after the rebuild and it doesnt appear to leak to much antifreeze at this point.

The engine is smoking quite a bit, but if it werent for that and the oil on the ground i actually wouldnt know the rings were bad because the pickup runs like the day i bought it, with that said i dont think it's ready to throw a rod at this point, but would i actually know if it was getting close?

Also i found a remanufactured 302 long block for $1042.00 is that a pretty reasonable price?

 

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 19-Dec-02 AT 07:44 PM (EST)]FWIW (maybe 2 cents, maybe a bit more) I was told by an old radiator mechanic "Prestone Super Sealer" is better than "Bars" in that it's less likely to clog (modern) rad./cool. system's (?).

IF used, follow directions to the letter.

Best - Glenn . . .

 

>Also i found a remanufactured 302 long block for $1042.00 is
>that a pretty reasonable price?

Sounds reasonable. I recently paid $1400 for a long block with a 3 year/unlimited mile warranty. Would have been about the same as you were quoted without the warranty.

>with that said i dont think it's ready to throw a rod at
>this point, but would i actually know if it was getting
>close?

By the time my engine reached the end of it's trail, it was rattling like a diesel when you let off the throttle and got back on it. Actually I think it might have been loose wrist pin bushings. I had been using 10w40 and tried 30wt and 20w50 but it didn't help. It didn't smoke any, just made that awful death-rattle.

By that time it had 250,000 miles on the original motor. It's an '81 I'd purchased used six years ago. So I don't know how well it was serviced or what oil had been used in it for the majority of it's life. I could only account for the last 20,000 miles of it life.

With a new engine in it, life is good!

Scott

 

Thanks for the info, The engine I found was $1042 with a 7 year or 70,000 mile warranty. I havent really gotten all the details on it but it sounds kind of fishy to me like there may be some catches.

Since i've been running 10w30 in the truck for over 10 years i'm going to go ahead and keep using that just because i dont want to hurt anything more by switching, not that i will but i dont want to take the chance.