Hey guys I have a 95 Z28 the other day driving the car started sounding like a diesel engine and the steering went stiff and died on me. I opened the hood and it was smoking it wouldnt start back up so i had it towed home. I got the car to start the next day and it started rumbling and the motor was "jumping" i opened the oil cap and smoke comes out of there and the exhaust(white smoke) Im thinking i have a cracked radiator or line because there is no fluid in the radiator out of no where. I put water in the radiator today and it started but still smokes and now i hear a knocking noise. Could my timing chain be jumping?cracked head?or blown head gasket? i tried tracing the lines to my radiator and found two lines coming out that the protectant tube had been ripped off of and coolant was dripping off of i felt up as far on the lines as i could and didnt feel and cracks or such...Help Please?! Thanks in advance

 

JMO but I am leaning more toward blown head gaskets or a cracked head. What did the oil look like on the dipstick? With no coolant in the radiator, it don't take long to overheat and really mess things up bad. When you say you put water in it and it started and had a knocking noise, it was probably missing real bad possibly getting coolant in the cylinders. Have someone do a pressure test on it.

 

DO NOT RUN THE ENGINE any more until you know where the coolant is going. Your engine is either sucking it in and burning it, or it's going down into the oil pan, or both. If it's going into the pan, your oil pump can start to suck up the coolant instead of the oil (oil floats, water sinks). Then you could have even more serious problems, like a completely fried engine. Check your oil level on the dipstick, if it's way high you have coolant in the pan. Also, quickly pull the drain plug from the oil pan and see what comes out. If you have any coolant in the oil, it will come out first.

 

Both make good points. The oil to me looks like regular color it is at normal level though. I opened the cap to the radiator and put water in it and turned the car on and it shot the water right back out. The car was smoking pretty bad out of the exhaust so both of you could be right. I have to do a compression check on the cylinders tomorrow or this weekend and I remember seeing a puddle of coolant under my car at the gas station a week or so ago but didnt really do any further inspection (stupid on my part) so im thinking its a cracked radiator. Hopefully didnt crack a head thanks for the input helped alot ill keep an update. Thanks

 

If it shot the water right back out the radiator, it is getting exhaust pressurizing the cooling system from either a blown head gasket or cracked head. Do a youtube search for blown head gasket videos and take a look.

 

Thre is no need for any special testing being that you will have to pull the heads to see what really happened.

 

what he said

 

So my best bet is to just pull the heads off? I was hoping it was something with the radiator or water pump maybe leaking through a gasket? But the videos are showing the same thing my radiator did and saying its a head gasket.And should i even bother with a compression test?

 

Thats right, no reason to test, just remove the heads, gaskets. Have the heads checked at machine shop to make sure they are not cracked, warped, etc and replace headgaskets. Then find what caused your coolant to disappear before running engine. You could have pressurized the system and split your radiator, bad hoses, bad rad cap or it could have had a blown head gasket that sucked all the water out causing it to over heat.

 

was in fact both head gaskets blown due to the "coolant transfer line" for the heads in the back of the motor. Coolant was leaking from the screws.