I think my sister blew the headgaskets in her 94 V6. Help anyone?

[astronut1885]

Hey guys. My sister has a 94 V6. It's got dual exhaust and flows, and that's it. The other day the tensioner pulley blew up, and she like a moron drove the car for 30 minutes with no belt. When she finally parked it, it had gotten pretty hot. Yesterday, I put a new belt and tensioner on, and drove the car for a while. It seemed fine to me, and I drove it for about 45 minutes. Today she called me and said it was overheating bad. Water was spraying out of the overflow, and there was steam everywhere. The belt was still on, so I knew something was up. When I got home, the car was cool. I ran it, and just sitting there holding a 2k idle I was able to get it 1/2 way to overheating. I smelled the exhaust, and it reeked of coolant, and it looked like some was dripping from the tails. I know 3.8s love to blow headgaskets, and with all the overheating and now this, I assume that's what happened. My mechanic said the same when I told him what I had found. Anyone here have any experience with this? I'm a 5.0 guy, so I don't know much about the 3.8 little brother....I know there's a V6 board, but it seems it isn't working. Any help here would be great.

 

[wytstang]

I'm pretty sure she blew the head gasket seeing as how the h2o pump wasn't working (no belt) for 30 min .

 

[95CobraMike]

i read your post, but i didnt see anything about white smoke out of the exhaust...
was/is there any?
is there any milky stuff in the oil?
not sure why there is coolant coming out of the overflow tank...

 

[astronut1885]

Oil actually looked kinda clear. When I gave it gas, there was some steam looking stuff coming out of the tailpipes, but it was nothing thick. Water would come out of the overflow if the exhaust pressure is getting into the coolant system and pressurizing it.

 

[STM1965]

i read your post, but i didnt see anything about white smoke out of the exhaust...
was/is there any?
is there any milky stuff in the oil?
not sure why there is coolant coming out of the overflow tank...

Might not show white smoke, my head cracked at the plug and coolent was weeping into at their and flashing off, just gave me a check engine light. No smoke out the ass end, and only light odor.

Mine never burped back into the overflow bottle, but it sure was using anti freeze, and never did leak back into the oil. Anti-freeze will act like a coolent when mixed with oil, but it attacks the babit in the lower end.

How many miles on the engine, why I ask is if the heads are gone, and it's a high miler you may be better off just pulling the engine and replace or rebuild it. These engines are bad for bottom end compression, once you replace the heads with rebuilt.

Been there, done that and own a V6 with a bad bottom end!

 

[astronut1885]

My mechanic said the same thing, just replace the motor. The check engine light is indeed on. This sucks. My sister just bought me a weekend of working on her car.