just got the car back from the shop after having a new trans installed and noticed that the car was running really crappy. rough idle and big drop in power, i assumed that it was a fouled plug or bad wire even though both have less then 1000 miles on them. after driving it with a friend behind me he niticed something fly out of the exhaust pipes and it thurns out to be big chunks of the inside of the cat. four big pieces came out after raving it and you can still hear more rattling inside the pipes so i thought this may have been related to the power loss. there were no cooling probs but we decided to drain and flush the radiator and what came out was brown and after flushing it 3 times new fluid would turn brown after a coule mins of running it and the temp would slowly work its way up to about 210 like norm but then just shoot right to 245 before i would shut it down. i also started to notice lots of white smoke from the tailpipes now. so does this sound like a blown headgasket to anyone else?
sorry for the long post im just so pissed right now.

 

what does the oil look like? any white smoke coming out the exhaust?

 

yes white smoke in the exhaust cant check the oil i bent the crap outa the dipstick tube when i put the headers in and cant get the dipstick back in i think ill just drain the oil tomorrow to take a look at it

 

if the oil is a milky color and you have white smoke coming out the exhaust you more than likely have a blown head gasket.

 

iv been told that if you have a blown headgasket your better off rebuilding the motor because the coolent in the oil can mess up the bearings. is this true?

 

If you car was runnig good before it went to the trans shop, it sounds like they may have had some fun breakin in the trans, so to speak and in the process did something bad to the car. Were you having heating or preformance issues before the car went in?

 

hard to say. i haven't really heard of that happening but I don't doubt that it can. id just take it one step at a time and check the oil first. if you determine that you have a blown gasket i'd just strip the heads, resurface them and reinstall them with some fresh gaskets.

 

Sounds like a head gasket, although I never really thought about the oil invading the radiator.

If it's a head gasket, I would just pull the engine and do a rebuild if you've got the cash to have some fun.

 

What usually cause a brown color in the water is combustion gasses getting past a blown head dasket into the cooling system. Think of this, compression is higher than the coolant pressure so it is gonna follow the path of least resistance. It is not really oil just un burn combustion gas. If you have the time i would do or have a leak down done. I would almost bet $2 you got a blown head gasket. I blew a head gasket many years ago due to a plugged cat. The pressure had no place to go except out the gaskets i guess.
good luck

 

that $2 enough for a lap dance?

 

the car was good before it went into the shop but im pretty close to my mechanic, hes been doing alot of work for me lately and isnt the kinda guy that would beat on my car. he has 9 camaros so my bird wouldnt be much of a treat for him to drive or anything.

 

naw the $2 is my grindage bonus cash back award at the local gentelemens club 10 lap dances and they give you $2 back in skeezer bux!

 

damn you dont kid around, kid! the nastiness around central tx dont deserve to grind themselves on my magic stick.

 

so the clogged cat could have caused all this?

 

yes. its a SOB huh?