!HELP! wagon died on me. pretty nasty. very concerned

[MaroonDuneDoom]

i was driving the day before yesterday and my heat was working fine. i went to drive yesterday and no such luck. it was running red hot, above the top-most line. so i topped off the coolant and when i did, i heard the antifreeze gurgle through the heater core. it pushed heat for about five minutes and then just cold. it was overheating very, very badly. i let her rest, did some partying, and when i drove home, it was overheating again and the lifters started to tick. they would tick very fast and only at half throttle. no tick until about half way to the floor. if i would push it beyond the "ticking" section of pedal, it would bog down. it ran like this for about 60-90 seconds. it died and i rolled to a stop and turned the starter to no avail. i pushed her to the side of the road and walked a few miles in below zero weather w/o gloves or hat and woke up my mom's boyfriend. this was about 2 am. so we drove to where my wheels were and i decided to try and start her first. it started. i got it back to his place, turned it off and wouldn't start again.

it all stemmed from a cooling system problem i think. it sounds like the t-stat. but i think my oil pump is shot too. it's reading no pressure. my mom's boyfriend told me that if i ran it without oil pressure for even a couple of blocks that it is junk. how true is this?

:boohoo:

[soobme]

Well.....I have seen it go either way. I have run an engine for 10 min. or so with the gauge showing "0", and had it live on for many years. And I have lost oil pres. for 30 seconds and had the engine seize right then and there.

I wouldn't write the engine off just yet.

[Turbone]

I would. You either blew headgasket(s) or cracked the head(s).

Rob

[calebz]

I second what rob says.. heads/gaskets are toasty.

[Snowman]

It's done. Time for some serious work. The heads are probably fubared and not worth saving. I would look for another engine.

[MilesFox]

that ticking sound you describe sounds like pinging. if you kept driving it after that, for sure you have popped a head gasket.

 

usually a bad head gasket will still run, but one account that i know of, being driven like you just described, it dropped a valve seat and wedged a valve open.

 

it probably popped a gasket a while ago, and just now noticed it by gettin hot(loss of coolant).

 

from right now, the only way to know is to take the heads off. if yer lucky, they arent cracked. but for sure you popped a head gasket.

 

the only heads i have been known to be cracked/too bad to use are ones that have dropped a valve seat

 

i'm sorry to hear the bad news. but dont give up on the soobs. a head gasket is something you can do yourself, sine you are alredy familiar with your soob. but use a torque wrench when going back together.

i wish you good luck!