please dont be a head gasket.....

[terdcelo]

during the hot summer daze here my 86 tercel stalled in traffic. Got it home and dont know how it ran coz it was dry of oil and coolant. Put 50/50 mix of coolant in and oil plus thermostat. It overheated and spit out the overflow hose.Took the thermostat out and it still overheated.I did notice that i left the cap off the rad and when i tried to start it a geyser of coolant went straight up about 5 or 7 inches in the air.What i need to know is did the head gasket blow and/or did oil ports get plugged with gooey oil deposits or both and more. Egad its a shame, it ran good enough before and now I am grounded, need this car to get to work.
i suppose if I blew the head gasket it would not be wise to drive it but I must get to work.I never owned a car before where the oil disappears with no visible leaks

[takza]

Sounds like a MAJOR head gasket issue....in this case maybe you'd hope it was the head gasket. I wouldn't try to drive it...you can only do more damage?

[Petros]

If you had the temp gauge pegged in the red zone, likely the gasket it toast. They can even fail when just high up on the gauge, never going into the red. Not normal to toast it bad enough to blow oil into the water jacket.

Are you getting clouds of white "smoke" out the exhaust, that quickly dissipates? That would be steam from the coolent, you ;usually can smell antifreeze in the exhaust "smoke" as well. Is your coolent looking milky brown in the radiator? IF you put your finger in the radiator does it come out feeling oily? If so you need to replace the head gasket.

If your are not getting oil in the water, you can drive it if you keep adding water to the system. With water in the system it will cool, and run okay, even if it is consuming water and blowing it out the exhaust as steam. I drove mine for over a year with a bad head gasket, I just would add about a quart or more of water every time I filled up with gasoline. But it will not get better, so it will have to get fixed sooner or later.

Compared to most cars, replacing the head gasket on this car is relatively easy, I can do it under 4 hours with hand tools. You leave the carb/intake/exhaust manifold all bolted in place, and remove the head pipe (if the exhaust gasket at the head pipe is good you can reuse it). Slip off the timing belt, unbolt the alternator, and take out the ten head bolts, remove all the wire and hose connections, and it pulls right off. I even leave the diff in place, just be sure you are careful not to damage the distrituor, the TSVS valve or any of the stuff you keep attached. ONce you clean off the old gasket material check the head that it is flat, and you can just replace the head gasket and not resurface the head.

I once or twice badly overheated the head and had to resurface it (it got really hot!), but most of the time the head is perfectly flat and just needs have all the old gasket removed.

Good luck.