Hi,
My girlfriend has a 1992 that was lossing a bit of coolant , overheating every so often and had a bit a light brown/tan slugde at the bottom of the dipstick. A local shop told her she needed a new head gasket (the engine has 192,000) so we pulled it into my garage this weekend and changed it out. The head looked to be in great shape and there was no obvious sign that the old gasket was "blown" but I am a novice and maybe blown doesn't literally mean "blow".

Anyway, we fired it back up and drove about 4 miles came back to the house and i noticed a large amount of steam coming from the dipstick tube and the new oil appears to have the "milky" substance!!!

reading other posts it sounds like a crack in the head could give similar symptoms...can anyone give me good direction on what to do next...I really dont want to take the head off again and find that it isnt the problem?

THANKS!!!!!!

 

Sounds like a cracked head or a warped one & I hope you change out the bad oil too. You may have to take your head in and have it magnafluxed to reveal cracking. Cracks are not always visible to the naked eye and cherokee heads that crack are prone to do it on the top side.

 

Could be a cracked cylinder too. Sometimes when replacing the water pump a few bolts will break. Once the broken bolt is removed a longer bolt may be put in its place and it will run right into the #1 cylinder cracking it. I don't know if that is the case with your rig, but I have heard of it happening.

 

Whenever a head is removed, it is HIGHLY recommended that the head be brought to a machine shop where they can check it for both straightness and also to be sure there are no cracks (pressure testing or magnafluxing). This service is not particularly expensive and is money well spent so that you don't end up doing the job twice.