(2000 Blazer)Blown LIM or Head Gasket?
 

Hello all,

a month ago when I was driving home from work I had my engine start sputtering and spewing white smoke and die on me a block from my house. I pushed it home and emptied out the Milkshake from my oil pan and saw that my coolant was completely empty. I also noticed the front driver side part of the engine was wet and there was a a protrusion from the LIM Area.

This took my by surprise because I just changed the oil 7-8 days prior and the coolant was good. So I put new oil in it and poured some distilled water and was confused when I had poured 3 gallons in and I still couldn't see the water level I closed it up and planned to come back and do a pressure test on it later .

I (stupidly) went to check if the engine would still turn over a couple days later completely forgetting about the coolant issue and it started up and idled around 900 and rough. I put it in drive to move it into my driveway because it is looking like it will flood soon and it got about 6 feet and sputtered out. White smoke spewing everywhere.

So it looks like I'm going to go get a pressure test for my cylinders to make sure it isn't also a head gasket.

if your lucky it could just be the lower intake gasket and the sputtering was caused by it sucking coolant while trying to run or just having a major vacuum leak from blowing the gasket out.
Make sure you do a couple oil changes once you get it up and running again to get all contaminated oil out of it.


I would change out the LIM gasket first and see how it runs because you cant pressurize the coolant system until that gasket is fixed and it might completely solve your problem.

The original cause is most likely your LIM gaskets, they are notorious for going bad on these blazers. The fact that you had it mixed with oil may have caused other damage. The running rough may be cause for concern. If coolant/water got into the combustion chamber it may have bent a rod or valve(s) because it doesn't compress.