I have a 96 chevy blazer. on my way home today i started to hear a ticking sound then overheated way over the red line and then it died had smoke comming out of the intake manafold. and could hear a slight boiling sound my antifreeze resovouir is full but my radiator is bone dry. i checked my oil and its milky. IT has a vortec engine and i was told these do have a tendency to leak in the lower intake manafold gasket. it has 169 thousand miles on it. my guess is that its the intake manafold gasket but i am unsure if that is the case or not. i know it also coud be the heads which i hope and pray not. i havent had one problem with it before now and its in really good condition. any insite on what it could be?

 

man,i hate to say it...but it sounds like a head gasket.

 

*Moving to 2nd Gen Tech* - 1st Gen Tech is for the 83-94 S-series SUVs.
It is very likely that the LIM gaskets are at fault. More than a few people have had an internally leaking LIM gasket with no signs of failure on the exterior of the engine.

If the headgasket were to have failed, you should see signs of it on the plugs and/or through a compression test.

 

I just finished rebuilding mine for the exact same problem. LIM was the cause.

 

Before it overheated and whatnot was it misfiring badly? Smoking out the tailpipe?

If not then it was probably LIM....LIM gasket failures are a LOT more common than headgasket failures on these engines. If it got to the point of knocking your engine might be toast. But if you want to chance it (and my cheap *** would) get it towed home and replace the LIM gaskets. Change the oil, fill the coolant, and pray that when you start it it's ok...... Just my .02

 

I am taking it in tomorrow to a shop and they are gonna do a compression test on it to tell me where the problem is at. If its the head gasket do you think its worth putting the money in to it to fix it or should i just junk it? It wasnt smoking out of the tail pipe and no it wasnt misfiring badly. it started to tick shortly before it died. i really love my blazer and dont wanna part with it but if its a lost cause then i will have to get rid of it and find another one.

Also when i pulled the dipstick it was like a caramel color it didnt look abnormal to me and it wasnt overfull but when i took off the cap where you put the oil thats where it looked milky. and before it died my service engine light was flashing which i guess it should have been.

 

If you love it, have the engine rebuilt or replaced. That may or may not be cheaper than junking it and buying another but at least you'll know your engine is sound.

And, yes, I'm pretty sure you will need a rebuild or replacement from your description of what happened.

 

Yupp! Have you had any unexplained loss of coolant the last few months? I was constantly adding small amounts for a year and couldn't find a leak until the LIM did a catastrophic blow out. The good thing was it happened 1/4 mile from the house so more damage didn't occur by driving with contaminated oil. Looking inside the engine there's solid surfaces in the valley where small amounts of coolant leaking from the LIM can evaporate so it never makes it to your oil. In my case it wasn't leaking until the pressure built up which just also happens to be when the engine heats up. This situation could have been detected by a coolant pressure test but I was stupid until I found this great web site.

 

well my blazer will bew done anyday now it was the LIM that caused this and i was told that i was very lucky because its never been replaced before cuz they usually need it replaced around 70-80 thousand miles and mine last til 169 thousand thank you for all your imput it really helped