The only time I noticed steam/smoke was on the last 1 minute of my race home before it died, so there could have been but hadn't been paying much mind to my rear view mirror cause I was basically running with 1 foot on the gas peddle so it wouldn't stall and one on the break. I also had no visible leaks but coolant was going almost as fast as I was pouring it into the overflow tank.

Right now I am at a standstill and not sure what to do. I am limited by having to do this in my apartment parking lot and cannot get the valve covers off without having the oil/water/coolant sludge dumped all over the ground and my landlord freaking out. I have tried dumping boiling water into the valve covers thinking it might liquefy some of the sludge but that didn't help... even tried blowing 1100 degree air into the valve cover with a heatgun but that didn't help either.

The only thing I can think of is using some kind of engine flush, but then how do I run the engine without any coolant? If I put any coolant in then that will just add to the mess and not clean anything...

I am rather upset and stuck not knowing what to do right now.

 

if you could get a loan just enough to get the job done you would be better off in this case. that engine is too far gone to keep it in the van. to try and fix that engine will be a waste of time and $$$. now if you caught it sooner it might have been saved but now from reading this it got hot and ruined it. it doesn't cost as much as you think to change out engines, nor does it mean that swapping engines is really difficult.

 

well if the inside the valve covers looks as bad as that intake thats not good even if you could clean most of the sludge out which would require alot of teardown and could somehow pressurize the oil system to maybe flush all the passages out you still have the problem of where the leaks is unless very obvious and how much damage is already done.hate to see you do all that work and still loose the motor a day or weeks down the road.its not very cheap but some of the salvage yards will also install the motor for you,the motor pretty much comes out the bottom with the sub frame so you need very high stands or a lift ,have read of some pulling the motor out the top but never saw any pics and I wouldnt do it that way ,

 

Anytime you run an engine without the proper lubrication damage does occur. I think you are missing the point here, that stuff does not clean out like doing your laundry. It is persistent and requires solvent to remove. Even if you were able to remove a lot of it there still will be a lot to circulate through the engine continuing to do damage. The only way to get it done right is complete disassembly which is out of the question under the circumstances. People have done some unbelievable things and putting a band aid on this engine with what you are contemplating will be one for the books. If, you don't have the means to do it any other way , it will take every cent you can spare to keep it going. Sorry for seeming so negative, but those of us who have been there learned a valuable lesson even if it took only once!

 

So I ended up having the engine replaced with a junkyard one and seems to run smooth as butter and it has only 68,000 miles on it compared to my old one that had around 125,000 on it.

Anyway when I pulled out of the junkyard lot I noticed a very slight vibration through the seat and just figured it could be a tire with low air. So I got home and checked but they were all fine. So I took it for a test drive on a local road thats barely ever used (so rarely used that back in the day people use to setup cones and practice for their drivers test) and these are the symptoms:

From a dead stop it vibrates and I would say on a scale of 1 - 10 (10 being knock your teeth loose vibration), would rate it around 1 - 2.

It vibrates between 1 mph - 39 mph (couldn't feel anything once I hit 40).

When going from dead stop to 39 and driving for sometime without stopping or slowing down, you can feel the vibration fairly steady, but when driving the more traffic, stop lights and sign areas near my home where I am doing roughly 5 - 35 mph with a lot of slowing down and speeding up... the vibration gets worse like a scale of around 3 - 4 but not constantly at that level...

Best way to describe it would be going from a dead stop I feel the 1 - 2 vibration and up to say 10 mph... hit the break a little and drop to around 8 miles and hour and get back on the gas real slow the vibration intensifies to the 3 - 4 and as I speed up it drops back to 1 - 2 and does the same thing around 20, 30 and 40 mph.... (where I let off gas, drop a few mph and then get back on gas slowly). And when I make turns from a dead stop its around a 2 - 3.

The kicker is this... with all circumstances the vibration is not noticeable when letting off the gas and coasting... only once I hit the gas does it occur.

I was thinking possible cv joints/axle... motor mounts... tie rod end... tire/s out of balance... alignment... but then what if any of these would only produce the vibration when under load (giving it gas) and NOT when coasting?

 

Even vibrates sitting in park at certain points when slowly giving it gas...

 

You may want to have someone check where the torque converter mounts to the flywheel. I once bought a used car that had recently had the transmission rebuilt and it made a knocking sound and vibrated at idle and low speeds, but when you got on the throttle hard it would smooth out and stop. Basically the symptoms were the reverse of yours, but it could still be the source. I only had to tighten the nuts that held the torque converter studs to the flywheel and the problem was solved.