Also if the piston was cracked would it leak out the gasket? Its just a small leak about 1/8th of an inch long.

 

It depends on the extent of the damage. If it is just one piston and isn't damaged that bad you could get away with just honing (sp) and replacing the pistons and rings in just that one cylinder but if it is the piston i would strongley recomend replacing the one piston... hone all the cylinders and replace all the rings and might as well change the rod bearings also... So in other words if its the piston you can get away with just doing that one cylinder but that would be half-*** and i would recomend a full rebuild

 

if it is a piston it shouldn't leak out of the headgasket so it very well could be the head gasket, or both. good luck with pullin it apart, let us know what it is

 

How will we be able to tell if its the piston? After removing the heads, will the pistons just be floating around in there?

 

well you can't always tell if you broke a piston without removing it but most the time you can. You will just have to look at each of the cylinders and look for things like scored cylinder walls (pretty much scratches that go straight up and down), any kind of metal deposit on the top of the piston or on the cylinder walls, hairlane crack, slightly bigger gap between the piston and cylinder walls in just a certain part of the piston and stuff like that. Its fairly easy to tell once you pull the heads off because the cylinder with the broken piston will look worse than the rest. To check to see if the gasket was to blame just check for any missing sections of the gasket or passages that shouldn't be there

hope that helps

 

Oh yeah the radiator hose that comes off the waterpump was really hard and swollen. When we took off the cap from the coolant reservoir the water was boiling and bubbling out the top. Maybe the thermostat got stuck? Keep in mind that its the waterpump bigguy75inches sent me for the application.
Thanx in advance

 

YOU KNOW WHAT...excuse my stupidity but i didn't clearly read your first post. When you say white smoke is it white like paper white or is it a grayish/blue white? If its paper white (steam) then i would say definately just the head gasket and the pistons are most likely ok still could be damaged but most likely ok. The bubbling when you take the cap off is caused by blow by gases getting into the cooling system (shouldnt be like that... sign of a blown head gasket). one of the best ways to know for sure would be to drain the oil.. if its milky then its your head gasket, if it smells like gas vapors then its the piston and if its both....well im sure you know

also did it ever overheat or anything like that?

 

does any body remember basic auto shop 101
what color is the smoke for water
what color is the smoke for oil
what color is the smoke for fuel

from what i remember water is white, oil is gray and fuel is black,
i bet that you blew the gasket on the water jacket,
pull the plugs and see witch one is wet.

 

The smoke was white like paper. The temp seemed to be normal but maybe the thermostat stuck. This **** sucks. Tomorrow the tear down begins.

 

but some people classify the color of oil smoke as white instead of gray... why i was asking the "exact shade" of white