Clearly I am a crank. I am attached to this Chev van perhaps overmuch. I get regular offers to buy it, it's in good enough shape to merit a full restore which is sort of what I have in mind. I like the way it drives, the sheer space is not bad either.
I had an overheating event several months back, a bit shy of catastrophic, was about 3/4 of the way up on the gauge. I had been struggling with some coolant loss issues. My mechanic put in two new freeze plugs, a new radiator and cap took care of the rest ... I thought.
I'm having phantom coolant loss. No dripping to be seen anywhere but it still goes through about a gallon a month. I was having some whitish smoke at startup. Additionally, power at 60mph+ seems down. My reading has it that along with coolant loss, compression loss at high speed leads to reduced power.
So I'm biting the bullet - I have a good place to do the work and some time. I'm not far into it - I have the exhaust manifold unbolted, the plugs and wires out, yesterday I drained the coolant, planning to take the radiator out to free up some space plus I'm going to put in a new water pump before I button it up.
I've been reading here and there about misdiagnosing the head gasket issue. The white smoke only lasts briefly. Once warm there's none of it - possible indication that the white smoke is not from leaking coolant.
But looking at all of the freshly drained coolant really gives me pause. It's pristine, looks like fresh out of the bottle. Even with regularly adding new stuff seems some of it would show the taint of oil. Another angle however is the notion that this motor could use a new gasket and head job at 200K, I'm at 190K now.
This is a big job. Taking it apart is easy, getting it back together in optimal fashion will be harder. I do not want to be left with a basket case. Complicating matters, I'm housesitting my sister's place on the WA coast, about 30 miles north of Aberdeen, not exactly a teeming metropolis, and 78 miles from Olympia. There is a NAPA auto parts in Ocean Shores 16 miles away.
I should have done more diagnosis. I don't have my pressure tester with me, I can rent one at the Autozone in Aberdeen but even that wouldn't be conclusive. I've read that garages sometimes have a tester to look for hydrocarbons in coolant. That might indicate some cases where there is a gasket leak but the coolant doesn't look robot coffee.
