Losing Oil And Antifreeze

[rhamaker]

I have a 2004 GMC Sierra Z71 with the 5.3 liter Vortec. I bought it about 3 months ago as a higher mileage truck (144,000 to be exact) and it came with no expressed warranty, that's why I am here asking questions. After driving it for about a week after the purchase, I noticed the temp gauge would climb up and down as I drove and stopped. I checked and noticed the coolant was low, so I added about 1/4 a bottle. This went on for about 2 days until i had added the whole bottle, but the hand stopped moving. A few days later the instrument cluster warning LED alerted me that I was low on oil. I took it to the dealer and had them do a full workup, changed all the fluids including the oil and antifreeze. This was all less than 1,000 miles ago. Over the past weekend i noticed the temp hand acting screwy again, so lo and behold it was low on coolant. Well this morning when I cranked it up the oil light came on. To me it seems like a head gasket problem, but I am not loosing coolant to the oil pain and the oil isnt milky. I have checked and have no visible leaks and the truck doesnt smoke EXCEPT every 3-4 days when i start it cold it will puff out a big cloud of white smoke. It smells like the smoke that would come off a steam engine, and the smell lingers in the garage.

 

Any help with this would be appreciated. The truck starts and drives fine and I dont have any problems with it, except it is misteriously loosing fluids!

[Wingnutt]

o me it seems like a head gasket problem

 

Sounds to me like you are on the right track. Not all head gasket problems will have coolant in the oil or vice-versa. But the thing that would make me start with the head gasket is that you loosing both oil and coolant. I *think* the reason that you temp gage is acting screwy is from air pockets that have formed in the engine due to loosing coolant. Just my $.02

[cbxeric]

I had a truck that blew it's head gasket, It would misfire when first started in the morning and the exhaust smelled rather unusual (lots of white smoke). No oil loss, nor was there any coolant in the oil or oil in coolant. It all depends on where the head gasket fails as to what symptoms you will get. I just lost a lot of coolant. Aluminum heads + iron block = hard on head gaskets. I ended up planing the heads and block because the leaking coolant scored them (warranty).

 

Good luck. Eric.

[Draenor]

You could always pull the plugs and inspect them for excess oil. While you are at it, run a compression test on each cylinder.

[unusualmind]

figured id be obvious and side with them... head gasket... u mentioned that there isnt any coolant in the oil but what about oil in the coolant..? ... ill probably be in the same boat soon..my daily driver is a 96 deville w/ the good ole northstar..notorious for head gaskets

[xtreme77mopar]

INTAKE GASKET!!! about 4-500 dollar repair

[Dean_o]

Probably not the intake gaskets as for the LS based motors have a dry intake. But I would definatly do a compression check for the oil loss. As for the coolant, have you noticed any residue on the windshield, or a funny odor in the cab? Take a flashlight and crawl underneeth the truck, find the drain tube for the AC and look to see if there has been any coolant coming from there. This happend to me and I never saw any on the ground becouse it was all blowing back on the undercarriage.