white smoke and milky oil

[robert_t_wallace]

I'll try to make a long story short.. Had a rear main seal leaking and hired a mechanic to come over and do the work. While doing the seal, he noticed that the timing chain needed replacing. He did the seal and replaced the timing chain, but ran out of light so stopped. 16 degree weather hit so car sat with timing cover off and radiator hoses open. After it warmed up, came out and finished the job. Running the car, it started smoking, oil was milky and car over heated. We went in and replaced head gasket... same thing.. Mechanic is saying I need to get the head checked..

I know coolant passes through timing cover... but... I am getting lots of white smoke which indicates coolant in cylinder.. I was thinking bad gasket on the timing cover.. I am hoping it's not a cracked block..

I did find a 1973 Maverick inline 6 on CL.. I assume that would be a drop in??

My 200ci is the original motor in a 1966 Mustang coupe. It has the Clifford 2bbl conversion with a Weber carb. It also has the classic inline split headers..new,alternator, new water pump, new timing chain, new starter, pertronix in the original dizzy...

 

[rbohm]

a couple of possibilities;

1: it might be coincidence due to the cold weather combined with a lot of moisture in the ait

2: you might have a bad head gasket, or a cracked head, or both.

so the first question i have for you is, does the smoke go away after a while? if yes then you are just clearing out condensation. if no, then you need to dig deeper and pull the head for inspection.

if you just want to replace the engine, then yes a 73 mav 200 will bolt in.

 

[robert_t_wallace]

I think it is a dig deeper situation. After I got smoke and milky oil the first time, we replaced the head gasket and drove it again producing the same results. I can't find a rebuilt motor locally and trying to decide what to do as I have put a lot of money into this motor... I am most fearful putting money into the head and that not being the problem..

Here is the motor I am looking at, but can't tell the condition:

http://dallas.craigslist.org/ndf/pts/4336478998.html

Short of buying this motor, I have to decide whether I want to pull the head and get it looked at, or find a re-man motor somewhere..

 

[JackFish]

I know coolant passes through timing cover... but... I am getting lots of white smoke which indicates coolant in cylinder.. I was thinking bad gasket on the timing cover..

Eh? No it does not.

 

[Econoline]

Coolant does not pass through the timing cover. It is odd this all happened after work was done, but you mention 16 deg temps. Any chance the coolant was watered down or was water?

 

[xrwagon]

i had milky oil in an old 42 chev truck i had with the 235, turned out to be a dead cylinder, you could try warming up the motor then either spray water on each pipe or use a probe to check each cylinder, could be head gasket related, maybe a compression test also.

 

[64 200 ranchero]

how did you torque the head? the picture of the head at the bottom of the page shows the correct sequence when torquing the head. and you have to torque in steps 45-55, 55-65, 65-75. if you installed the head like this and did not tweak the gasket then the head might be cracked.

how clean was the top of the block before the head was installed?

does the coolant leak into the oil pan even if you do not run the car?

how much does the oil level go up after you run the engine?

i was working on a f-100 with a 302 a while back, the driver ran it with very low coolant and drove it till it overheated, we thought it just needed the head gaskets replaced so we replaced them and ran the engine, it was smoking and making the oil milky, so we pulled the oil pan and noticed that coolant was leaking from inside the block, the block was cracked. i dont know if this is likely on a straight six but you might want to check under the pan if everything else looks ok.