1991 Dodge overheated. Found oil in water and water in engine. Engine runs starts and runs as if nothing is wrong. Could be cracked block, head or head gasket. Any other possible source? How can I diagnose? :'(

 

Sounds like a blown head gasket.

 

it moght also be the engine oil cooler.

 

Due to the overheating I am leaning towards a blown head gasket. If your oil is turning white I would suggest that you stop driving it. If there is only a few drops of water on the dipstick you could probably drive it for a while and see if it gets worse.<br>As for checking, well, for the head gasket you can do a compression check. Other than that I am afraid the head must come off.<br>If you can find a really tiny boroscope you can remove the injectors and take a look inside each cylinder and see if any one or maybe two is oilier than the rest.<br>BTW, has anybody used a boroscope for this purpose?<br>Anybody agree with me or am I all wet (oily)?<br>Onaknoll, one thing you did not mention. After it overheated how soon did you add water and how quickly? Was the motor running when you added the water? These will have a direct bearing on what your problem could be. For instance, if you added water while the engine was still overheated and with the motor off, then there is a good chance you cracked the head.

 

One more vote for the head gasket. I highly recommend that you stop driving NOW until you get it repaired. Sorry to hear about your troubles.<br>Ed

 

Mexstan I have used on for that just to have a look! LOL I have one from when I used to do maintainence on my C-185. Anyways I agree that the head gasket is the problem and its probably a good idea to watch it really close or not drive it at all.

 

Jamie, at least someone knows what I am talking about. However the plug hole (two per cyl) on your Continental is (if memory serves me correctly) 18 mm while the hole for the injector is considerably smaller. It will take a pretty small boroscope probe to go in there and many machines would not have one that small.

 

Mexstan reminded me of something. If your 'scope is too large, maybe you could find one for inspecting rifle bores. The one I used to have would fit inside .30. Just a thought. Good luck.<br>ED

 

I have an Olympus scope to inspect the pumps we repair. The probe is only about 3/8&quot; dia. and has 4 way articulation on it with the right angle lens. If onaknoll is any where near me, maybe we could hook up and have a look, IF it'll fit in the injector hole.<br>I used it on my Ford 360 to look at how bad I burned a valve a few years back, and it was UGLY.

 

Sherod, great thought. That may just do the trick. 'Scopes by their nature with the optics etc tend to be expensive and you may have provided some guys with a cheaper way to scope their engine innards.

 

The head's gotta come off either way, why not just fix it?

 

Mexstan, The Olympus scopes range in price from $15,000.00 up to $40,000.00. if any one is interested in getting one to use, one good place to look would be Ebay, but search under ENDOSCOPE first, then fiberscope. The endoscopes are used in hospitals, but do the same thing, just stay away from ones with alot of broken fibers (little black dots) in the eye piece. You'll also need a light source, but the scope will pay for itself many times over if used properly. What's nice about an endoscope in a motor, is you can insert a device to remove things with the scope. We use a real fiberscope, not an endoscope because if something is in the pump, it's already to late to help.

 

OUCH!!!!!!!!! I never realized they were quite that expensive! <br>Guess I will not be buying one for occasional use. Have bought many good tools for odd use but this is one I will have to pass on. Maybe Rod will buy one and loan it out to the DTR'ers like his hole saw :P

 

Don't have a heart attack, they don't go for that on Ebay. A good used one would probally only set you back $1-2k, without the light source. But warn people to stay away from anything other than an Olympus (best) or Pentax. There are even some on there with the video stuff, I have seen some going for as much as 6K, as we have been looking to purchase another one for our road truck, just depends on how fancy you want to get, but they are great tools, and good entertaiment for the grandkids to see why they should have thier ears cleaned out . When I mentioned the 40K one, I almost had to put some nitro under mommas tongue, she wanted to know if it could drive the truck, do reports, and make it get better fuel mileage all at the same time (yes baby it can), my mistake was leaving the Olympus phone # where she could see and call it to ask, just glad it's 70* outside

 

For anyone interested click on this link http://www.olympusindustrial.com/ then click on products, it list fiberscopes and boroscopes, just depends on what you want, but you better be ready to open the wallet WIDE