I've have had this '95 Chevy Blazer for several years. I dumped a ton of money in it when I first got it and gave it to my son to drive. A year and half ago he was driving home from work when he called me and told it was blowing a large cloud of white smoke from the tailpipe. I took it to a mechanic and he told me blown head gasket. At 203K miles I figured that was enough. It has been sitting ever since. Today I decided to mess with it and discovered two things. One, it still billows white smoke when the engine is revived and the other is raw gas coming from the tailpipe. There is no sign of water in the oil. The coolant was a little low, but less than a quart. The engine has a slight miss, but runs well after sitting for 18 months.

Maybe I have two problems: One might be a bad spider and the other a manifold gasket leak?

I would like to get it driving again, but I don't want to spend a bunch of money on it. Any ideas?

Forgot to add that it has the 4.3L Vortec V6.

Andy

 

Any opinions are welcome. Fix or ditch?

TK-Blazer

 

From your description I would say to fix it.

The white smoke is very likely to be a leaking lower intake manifold gasket as they are very common to go on these trucks. The fact that it made it to 200k before yours did is pretty impressive.

Your raw fuel issue is most likely on a 95 to be either a leaking nut kit in the intake manifold or a leaking fuel pressure regulator, or both. Both are also common problems on these trucks.

A blown head is honestly pretty doubtful since you would have way more issues then just a slight miss and some smoke if that were the case.

The actual repair costs for these issues are pretty minimal if you do the work yourself. There are dozens of pages of information on diagnosing and repairing both these floating around these forums.

 

I think you're right on with the spider. My engine ran fine but wouldn't start without depressing acceperator. Never threw a code so I just kept wondering instead of changing parts. Didn't realize this can easily damage engine as raw fuel is spewing into cylinder(s), destroying catlytic convertor, and damaging valves and rings.

 

Thanks for the insight. I guess I some more work to do the next time I have some free time. I started it again today and there is no bubbling in the radiator. Less smoke today, but lots of fuel coming out the tailpipe.

TK-Blazer