Near UCSB?

[SilverShadow]

My son drove from LA to his College in Santa Barbara, UCSB. He has the 91 coupe. Just before he got there the car bellowed white smoke, He thinks he forgot to add oil before going. He drove it only 5 minutes after that to exit the 101. Got it towed to his dorm after that.
I need to know if anybody that works on our cars is nearby to help us get it checked out. He says that the motor runs fine except for the smoke. I can pay someone a reasonable price if they can fix it.

[deevergote]

White smoke is coolant. Sounds like he blew the head gasket.

[SilverShadow]

But a couple of days before he got a new radiator and then I drove it back and forth from Santa Clarita to LA and back and no problems. He said the radiator wasn't hot but the temp gauge was above "H". He put in 5 quarts of oil at the freeway exit, which tells me he ran with barely any to start. Now since he is too far to bring it back here...I'm hoping someone is near or knows a good place near the campus since I know nothing about SB except that it's a very upscale city.

[bluecb7]

Yeah man white smoke=coolant. Like Deev said he probably blew the head gasket.

[Chan_Man]

Quickest way to find out if you have a blown head gasket, is to pull off the valve cover and check to see if the oil is milky white. Or if their is milky white oil covering the whole head.

[deevergote]

But a couple of days before he got a new radiator and then I drove it back and forth from Santa Clarita to LA and back and no problems. He said the radiator wasn't hot but the temp gauge was above "H". He put in 5 quarts of oil at the freeway exit, which tells me he ran with barely any to start. Now since he is too far to bring it back here...I'm hoping someone is near or knows a good place near the campus since I know nothing about SB except that it's a very upscale city.

Radiator wasn't hot, and the temp gauge was above "H"... he overheated it. That's how headgaskets get blown. Something wasn't working properly. If the radiator wasn't hot, it wasn't circulating coolant. It's a heat exchanger. It's supposed to get hot. That means one of two things:
1.) Something is blocking the cooling system. Which is likely. If he just replaced the radiator, I wouldn't be surprised if the old radiator was attempted to be "fixed" with some sort of stop-leak garbage, that can gum up the works otherwise. That, or the thermostat is installed backwards... or has somehow stuck closed.
or
2.) The water pump has failed. No pump = no circulation. No circulation = overheated motor.

I vote for #1.

Regardless of the cause, the damage is done. If the temp gauge was maxed, it was overheated.





And he was driving with no oil? If he added 5 quarts, that motor was either bone dry... or he overfilled it. Either way it was low enough to do some major damage if it even took 5 quarts without overflowing!




You don't need someone to replace that head gasket. You need someone to replace that motor. If it suffered that sort of abuse, who knows what else could be wrong... Warped head, fried piston rings, etc...