Puked out the oil

[zigbat]

88 OMC 2.3L Cobra
My impeller housing was leaking and i overheated real bad (smoke, water peculating, fried bellows) and I stopped on an island and discovered the problem and fixed it (i thought) and took it on a test run across the river.
It seemed to be ok temp wise but suddenly it puked all the motor oil out and I saw the guage drop and shut it off...
I cant tell where the oil came out but the dipstick was pushed up about 4 inches so im thinking it came out there..
The oil was dark, didnt appear to be water contaminated,
the engine wasnt knocking or giving any indication of a major problem..

My question is.. what would cause a very recently way overheated engine to puke out its oil thru the dipstick??

 

[bruceb58]

My question is.. what would cause a very recently way overheated engine to puke out its oil thru the dipstick??

Warped head and blown head gasket.

 

[zigbat]

good... anything besides cracked block...

 

[Scott Danforth]

dont rule out the block. if you overheated it enough to boil water, you probably took out the crank and rod bearings too in addition to scoring the cylinder walls. in addition to your fried bellows, you also melted the inside of the rubber exhaust hose, burned the exhaust flapper

I would replace the whole longblock. its a ford pinto / ranger motor so a replacement will be easy. however a 4.3 will drop in its place if you needed.

 

[zigbat]

I have a parts engine that had a freeze plug cracked when i got it so Im assuming it frozze and I am assuming the block is cracked so I was gonna use parts from it to fix mine . As long as the block isnt cracked on mine it should work out.. If it is I'll have to find out for sure if the parts motor's block is bad i guess..

wouldnt I have to re-gear the outdrive for a 4.3?

 

[Keyboardman]

I thought the gearing was different between the 2.3 and the 4.3 outdrives also.

 

[Scott Danforth]

I have a parts engine that had a freeze plug cracked when i got it so Im assuming it frozze and I am assuming the block is cracked so I was gonna use parts from it to fix mine . As long as the block isnt cracked on mine it should work out.. If it is I'll have to find out for sure if the parts motor's block is bad i guess..

wouldnt I have to re-gear the outdrive for a 4.3?

you cant swap internals on a block. pistons, rings, bearings are a one-time use thing.

core plugs dont crack. if it was cracked, the block wasnt winterized and the water froze and broke the block. core plugs are for getting the core casting sand out when they pour the block at the foundry.

yes, you would need to re-gear

I thought the gearing was different between the 2.3 and the 4.3 outdrives also.

the gearing is different. however new gearing or a new drive is still better than the 2.3.

 

[zigbat]

well.. I got the head off the motor.. Head is in the machine shop as of yesterday so I dont have an official verdict on it but it looked fine just looking at it, the head gasket did not appear to have leaked, and the block looks to be fine (also unverified at this point) actually it looks like this motor has had very very little use since it was rebuilt.. One thing I did find was that the exhaust manifolds water holes (dont know what the water holes are called) were pretty cruddy and one of the smaller water holes was nearly completely blocked.. I think maybe i didnt overheat the motor so much as the exhaust system, like maybe the water was partially blocked at the riser/manifold joint and water was in the motor but not enough getting thru the exhaust to cool it.. This doesnt explain the oil ejecting its-self from the dipstick (i am still assuming, since I havent found another suspect).
Also when removing the head the bolts didnt seem to be torqued down to the proper value, maybe stretched?? maybe lazy or incompatant rebuilder?? Maybe both??
Although the gasket didnt show signs of being blown and no water was in the oil so far as i could tell i wonder if the head may have been loose enough to allow some pressure into the crankcase somehow. PCV valve appeared operational too..
Scratching my head over this one...