Water in oil, technicolor smoke

[Grant]

Nate,

It certainly sounds like a head gasket.  There are only a few ways 
water can get into the oil - through a cracked block (ouch!), a head 
gasket that acts as the above, (inconvenient, but not the end of the 
world), or through teh valve cover area (external water, not coolant). 
I actually cant figure out how a breather hose would allow coolant 
(whcih is in its own closed system) to get into the motor.

The water could be either coolant or outside water.  one way to find 
out is to see if there is also oil in your water. Of course, you'd need 
to run the engine and let the thermostat open to really find out, whcih 
you might not want to do.

I'd also check around the valve cover (which leaked like a seive, but 
generally from inside to out, no biggie).

Yes, a head gasket could fail with 240k :-).  And cold weather is the 
time for it to happen - oil pressure is high, parts contract (fit 
loosely) and something gives.

Dont run it much with water in the oil, btu you knew that.

Grant


On Dec 10, 2005, at 9:23 AM, nate lamented:
>
> A couple of days ago I started up the 86 4kq in the cold, (about zero 
> degrees F) and it was acting real wierd.  While it was warming up it 
> started to put out some really white smoke which then proceeded to 
> turn slightly brown, and I then turned it off.  I thought it might be 
> burning oil or something because it was so cold and when I opened the 
> oil cap it had the white paste on it that collects when water gets in 
> mobil 1.  I've had this happen before because of a torn breather hose, 
> but all of my hoses/lines are sealed now and I don't know where the 
> moisture would have come from.  Does this mean that I have a bad head 
> gasket?  Is there any way to tell this for sure?  What can I do to 
> find out, or what is another way that water could get in the oil.  The 
> motor has 240k or so unknown miles on it so would a head gasket just 
> randomly go bad like this?  I don't drive the car hard at all so I'm 
> not sure why this would have happened.  Hopefully you guys have some 
> suggestions/btdt's for me because I don't want to do my first head job 
> over winter break.
> Thanks
> Nate Ray
>