Wrong head gasket?

[1979cheyenne]

I had a suspicion to drain some oil from pan to check it rather than dipstick because the oil on the dipstick looked brand new and I had just changed oil and put marvel mystery oil in with it to clean it because the truck had been sitting when I bought it. The oil always looked brand new when I drove it but it began to run worse and worse so I parked it and drained oil from pan and to my surprise at least a cup of coolant came out then disgusting black looking oil. I thought that was weird considering it looked golden still on dipstick and I checked every time I ran it in the meantime. So I pulled intake off and heads and found 5 bent pushrods to go along with it. I was looking at head gaskets for spots it would leak coolant and couldn't find any. They are stamped metal. I noticed the openings for coolant passages look way to small. They look like they would block all flow and it caused the gasket to rot out close to the size of the passages in heads. I figured that would be the problem most likely. The truck had a functioning temp gauge and it never overheated on me on a hot California day. I also worried if there was coolant in oil it could have wiped out my cam and and bearings. The truck started backfiring through the carb apon heavy load like going as slow as I can over speed bumps to not scrape. The timing was set to factory spec on label on the radiator support all vacuum lines were correct. I had it running great when I adjusted the timing and idle mixture screws and connected the vacuum lines up correctly.

[VileZambonie]

Sounds like someone was screwin around in there. I'd yank it out and give it a proper overhaul.

[enaberif]

Steel gasket at a thickness of 0.015 is what is commonly found on these trucks but take into consideration how many monkees have played around with them too.

[1979cheyenne]

That's what I figured, just gotta find a cherry picker. The previous owners must have been monkeys I tell ya. 4 different size tires on it when I bought it and the rear end u bolts weren't even finger tight I almost found out the hard way and so many other things. What I was getting at was I thought figured someone installed the wrong head gasket and the wrong size coolant passages in them rotted and caused a leak. Is it normal for the holes to be that small compared to coolant passages in the cylinder heads?

[Captkaos]

Maybe it is late but I don't see any issue with "holes"...

[FlatBlack77]

me either. just looks like a used head gasket

[1979cheyenne]

I was saying that the gasket blocks 90% of all coolant passages because it's a small hole and not the shape of the passages. That caused the gasket to corrode in those spots. I someone installed the wrong gasket at some point

[1979cheyenne]

I'll post a better picture of the gasket in a bit