sneaky344

well where to start on this one.. i have a 1990 chev cavalier with a 2.0L engine, 5spd blah blah blah... about a week ago i got the oppertunity to get a newer body for the car so talked to a couple buddies and got the engine swapped from one car to another and everything ran great.. well for a while..

yesterday car was fine running great and all then idling at drivethru for a couple minutes caused massive overheat and started dumping staerm outta car... popped hood and there is a pinhole leak in rad.. no prob.. still had lots of coolant in it so drove home.. bout three klicks.. let cool down.. still had lots of coolant patched rad and refilled and went back out.. bout ten min later car started chugging like lawnmower... got progressivly worse for several min.. then kinda stabilized.. still running rough tho..

so brought it back home again and checked all the norm stuff... fuel, air flow, spark.. now when i pull plug for #1 cylinder it makes no change to how car runs.. any other plug makes it idle worse and so on.. plug looks wet while any other pull would look kinda.. glazed?.. but dry anyways.. so changed plugs.. no change.. changed wires.. no change.. even switched coil packs.. but after coil packs it sounded really rough for a few min and could hear hard lifter knck.. but went away pretty quick..

now comes the worst part of all.. i am too broke for pulling head to check lifters.. is there an easy way to find out what wrong with the engine that wont cost an arm and leg plus the pound of flesh closest to my heart?

hope to hear from someone soon
thanx in advance
Sneaky

Siliconasp

Sorry, no, your going to have to pull the heads. Sound like when the rad leak happen you may have cracked the head or water jacket, thus blown the gasket and mixing water and oil, which steamed your valves, and warping the valve stems or the seats.

either way your going to have to pull the head to review the damage.

Also while the head is off, you might just want to check your cylinder walls for rusting or pitting, as a result of water buildup.

MDTAHOE

Sounds like you blew the head gasket.

sneaky344

lol.. well thanks for the help guys.. but my problem turned out to be a one in a million lucky break.. i talked to a couple mechanically inclined ppls.. they told me same thing.. i talked to my father the cab driver and he told me to check valves first.. just try applying a bit of pressure to them and see if springs were working.. pulled the valve cover and discovered that the number one cylinder's intake valve rocker had actually spun the nut loose and twisted off to the side.. 30 seconds later i had the rocker back in place tightened all of them up.. all were rather loose.. and she runs like a dream again.. weird that it happened cuz that just dont happen.. rockers dont get loose bolts unless someone plays with em.. and what are the chances that it was the intake rather than the exhaust? lol.. i have a bit more than horseshoes kickin around here somewhere....

again tho thanks for the input.. i will refer others to this site as much as i can.. great info..