Anti-freeze coming out of tailpipe. UPDATE

Well, my '94 Ram 1500, 360 magnum, 213,000 miles, 4x4 has an ignition miss, is steaming out the exhaust and actually has anti-freeze dripping out of tailpipe. Do you think it's a blown head gasket or cracked head or what else would cause this? Also, milkshake oil.

If the engine never overheated, it should only be the head gasket. But you can't rule out the head. I would say it will be a 90% chance it will be the gasket. I've seen head gaskets blowing anti-freeze out back. Good luck.

When my small block did that, it was a cracked cylinder wall. Those cylinders are thin.

Personally, at 213,000 miles, a motor miss, steaming and antifreeze out of the exhaust, and milkshake oil, I'd say it is time for a motor. Nothing short of a major repair is going to fix it now. Sorry. Gene

Quite possible its a head gasket? Was it ever overheated? if so much more likely to be gasket....By no means does it mean you need an engine. At least not till you're sure what the problem is...

Sure will need a rebuild though. Water in the lower end and run enough for anti freeze out the tail pipes means new bearings for a start.

a couple of questions first. how rusty is it, what else is wrong mechanically, and how much do you want to spend ? if it isn't rusty, and still mechanically sound, either a re-man or junkyard motor. if it is rusty and/or has other issues, may be best to think about a new rig. just my opinion, your mileage may vary.

Is that one of them with the eng buried inside? If so from your descrip I would pull the eng. If you do have easy access I would pull the heads but I'm sure (as said) it will need to be completely opened up. When the time comes holler how it turns out.

Just because you have milkshake oil doesn't mean you need new bearings.....I've fixed many engines w milkshake oil and never replaced bearings and they never came back w noisy bearings.

Absolutely agree with this because a headgasket can fail many different ways. If it's only seeping coolant into the combustion chamber. The bearings are in no danger.

This may not answer your question directly Stumpy340 but a 94 with over 200,000miles. Basic math on an average 25 year old truck. It might be more cost effective to move on to another truck or as Moparx said, just swap in another motor.

Since these motors usually outlast the trucks you can probably find a good replacement for a few hundred.

As much as you guys like to dispute everything, nearly everyone reached the same conclusion I stated very early.

A 94 Ram has the motor buried way back under the dash. Ever just changing head gaskets is a pita on them. Its faster and easier to pull the motor to change the heads/gaskets then it is to fight with them while still in the truck. Add milkshake oil and 213,000, and changing the motor for a lower miles motor in better shape just makes sense (if the truck is worthy of a motor), and may be cheaper then heads and gaskets. Gene

Anti freeze and bearings don't get along well. They are to cheap to not change after being contaminated. If you have gotten away without replacing them you have been real darn lucky.

The other possibility is that its just the intake manifold leaking coolant into the oil, and you might be able to reseal it and change the oil a couple of times.

I don't believe that's the case anymore not that it's a good idea to run antifreeze in your oil.

I remember in the late 70's 8v92 Detroit Diesel engines had an issue with liner seals. They would fail rather suddenly and if the low coolant light came on and you didn't shut it down immediately, the crank went flat very shortly after. Glycol would destroy the bearings.

Sometime shortly after that they either changed the formulation of the antifreeze or the bearing material or maybe both as glycol contamination just doesn't seem to be an issue anymore at least in the short term.

I seem to recall 3.8 GM v6's with plastic intakes that leaked antifreeze and all they did was fix the leak and send it down the road.

Kevin

i bought my brother an oldsmobile at the auction with one of those engines. i don't remember how many miles it had, but he put a ton on it after purchase. he was in florida when the intake took a dump. he changed it out in the parking lot of a building that was under construction. i remember him saying the one crew was pretty bit$hy with him asking to borrow a few tools for the fix.
anyway, after the fix, he was stationed around the country and canada, finely arriving in california. after the intake fix, and several super close oil changes, the car had over 200k on it when he sold it.
the real problems with that car started after he sold it in california, and kept getting registered letters his car had been impounded. but that's a story for anouther time .....

Probably because new cars don't come with babbit bearings anymore, but aluminum. Antifreeze eats babbit

very good point on the bearing material. anyone around here old enough to have had the pleasure of re-babbiting rod and main bearings ? it is a [sorta] fun job !

i never re babbited any ,but i did get to remove shims in the rods of the 216 chevys,and the 235 chevy that were standard transmissions(the automatics were full pressure systems!!)

Here's a pic of what I'm dealing with.

Yep, that's antifreeze coming out of your tailpipe.

As has been discussed here, it could be several different things. But the only way to know for sure the cause is to pull the valve covers and heads and find out.

I would definitely stop running it that way, though. you aren't doing the engine any favors, and it isn't going to fix itself.

Thanks for all that have chipped in. Here's a little background on this. The motor started shutting off when it got up to normal temp, I'd have to wait for it to get stone cold again before it would restart. I did the key thing and it showed no ignition from coil, I replaced the coil, same thing happened. Then the dash blinker showed no egr signal, replaced the egr, didn't help. Next the dash blinked no signal from cam sensor, I was getting fed up with chasing things so I took it to a local shop, they replaced the cam sensor, no change. They then put it on their scope and told me it was a bad computer so I had them replace it. They called me a week later and said the truck was fixed. When I went to pick it up the exhaust was steaming (it wasn't steaming before they worked on it). They told me the steam was due to excess fuel in the exhaust system caused by the bad computer. I took their word for it. I trailered the truck home as there are no tags on it, I just use it for plowing my road. When backing it into the garage, the motor warmed up and shut off just as before. So now I have the same problem as before and now also dealing with the dripping tailpipe.

To answer some of your questions, the body is in good shape and yes, the motor is buried under the cowl overhang. I am wondering what they could have done while changing the cam sensor that would cause antifreeze to get in the motor? The cam sensor is in the distributor, behind the giant intake manifold and you can't even see the distributor. It doesn't look like they removed the intake to replace the cam sensor.

Here's one way to narrow it down a bit, remove all the spark plugs, have someone crank the engine over while you watch to see which spark plug hole is spitting antifreeze. This way you'll know which head to pull. You may have to put a pressure tester on the radiator while doing this but with the way antifreeze is coming out the tailpipe you probably won't have to.

Do you trust the shop that changed the sensor to tell you if they pulled the intake or not?

I could see the intake being the cause of coolant in the oil but it would be a stretch for it to find its way to the exhaust from there. I suppose it MIGHT be able to migrate from the water ports at the front and back of the manifold/cylinder head to the #1, #2 or #7, #8 intake port but that would be a perfect storm kind of scenario to have a gasket breech that much distance without it leaking visibly elsewhere. I don't know if it's possible for the intake to crack or perforate into the plenum from corrosion but that's unicorn territory too I think.

Have you pulled the plugs yet? That much coolant on the floor from the exhaust is going to show on the plugs. If it shows on one of the 4 corners you might have a faint hope of a cheap intake gasket swap fix but in any case it should point you to whatever hole is causing the problem and which head needs to come off.

The bucks down solution at that point I think is a trip to the local pull your own auto recycler on all engines for $199 day.

Kevin

Okay, I did as you guys said. Pulled the spark plugs, I couldn't really tell which one looked steamed. I had my girlfriend crank the motor over, number 8 sprayed A/F all over the inner fender. Looked into the hole with a light and found this (see pic). You can see the A/F thru the #8 spark plug hole. I found a running 5.9 for $550 and decided to just replace the motor. The shop that did the other work said they would cut me a break on installing it. Oh, they said they didn't remove the intake before and I can tell they didn't because the intake bolts were never touched.

Just my two cents, But do a compression check on the used motor if possible. I would also at least replace the head gaskets and pull the pan on the used motor. You don't want to be swapping one problem for another.

I would try a can of Kseal first before pulling the motor. Use exactly as the direction say, it is not at all like Barrs leak. Might get lucky and fix it...permanently. I have done it twice after my mechanic friend suggested it to me years ago.

It is made for these kinds of situations.
LINK

I don't know if the K Seal would have time to work. The motor still shuts off as soon as it gets warm. Would the A/F in the exhaust system effect the 02 sensors and tell the computer to either enrich or lean the fuel and cause it to shut the motor off? I know when the motor is cold it's in closed loop and when warm it goes to open loop and starts reading the sensors.

Other way around. Should be in closed loop when at operating temp. The dieing out is probably a separate issue from the coolant burning through cyl, but a misfire could be a symptom of burning the coolant.

If you were to disconnect the O2 sensor it would run open loop if it will run at all. You could try that to see if it will stay running long enough to get up to and stay at operating temp. I would bypass the heater before I ran that sealer thru it if it's made out of what I think it is.

You sure once it warms up that the AF leak isn't opening up to the point that it's hydraulic locking the engine, making it quit? Looked like a lot of green in one of those pictures you posted.

Kevin

It's not locking the cylinder because the motor will crank over easily, just won't fire. Should I disconnect the downstream 02 sensor? The pic is after it sat overnight.

If it will run with all of them unhooked, I'd try that.

Kevin

Okay, I tried the K-Seal, hasn't worked yet but the motor shut off when warmed up. Unhooked 02 sensor, same problem. Question, would a non working temp sensor for the computer cause the shutting off when warmed up?

Here's why the K-Seal wouldn't work, this head gasket was really out of shape. Head wasn't cracked.

Well at least it's a cheaper fix. Not easier though.

With the way it pushed that fire ring out the top of the cylinder it might be a good idea to put a straight edge along the top of the deck and check how far down that piston is compared to the other cylinders. You may have bent a rod.

GC340 your right, I checked the pistons, the other three are .050 in the hole and this one is .090 in the hole. I guess there's a bent connecting rod here. Thanks for having me check that.

It's not a bent connecting rod.
It's the super secret Mopar variable compression engine!

R.

I've heard about those super secret variable compression engines, I didn't think they put them in a truck but who knows with Mopar! Ha, Ha.

put a straight edge on it, I have had the deck surface that far off before.

Godscountry----just posting to say....Good Call! I would not have thought to check that,

Years ago, I had antifreeze come out of my driver's-side exhaust. I pulled the head and found the issue: 3 or 4 years prior, when I'd put the head back on after getting some work done, the wire to the neutral safety switch made its way inbetween the gasket and the head (across the #7 cylinder!). It ran like that for a few years before coolant finally made its way into the cylinder.
Sometimes it's amazing the dumb stuff that you can do to an engine and still have it run. Other times it's amazing how an engine won't run due to the seemingly smallest thing.

I have had the same thought over the years!

Since 1996 the majority of Magnum V8s head gasket failures I have heard about have been the rearmost cylinders.

On the old version of the Evans Cooling Website there was an article about the Detroit Police Dept trying waterless coolant in 5.2 Magnum V8s in Jeeps. They had to enlarge a rear coolant hole on the Magnum head gasket after several failures.