Ok, my g/f's brother's 94 F150 w/ straight six (~100k miles) started "smoking" and overheating on him. When I got to where he was, the truck had been sitting there for awhile. Popped the hood to find what has to be coolant all over the engine bay. It was too late for me to mess with it, so we took it half a mile down the road to a little place, and dropped it off. The problem is that the liquid was an opaque rust color. I mean it looked like liquid rust all over the engine. So, I am kind of thinking that the head gasket may be toast and it is mixing with oil to create this nasty looking stuff. I should have looked at the dipstick, but forgot to do so. I am thinking it has to be either a broken hose or the water pump. Visual inspection makes me think that it is probably the water pump, just from the way it was sprayed all over the engine bay, and the two hoses that pass over the fan looked to be ok (didn't have the best lighting to see it). Just curious if anyone has seen someting like this before. TIA.

 

when was the last time the coolant was serviced? i'v seen some pretty nasty rust colored "antifreeze" that turns crappy from no coolant system service....some of the newer coolants are red to start with...probably not a head gasket...unless it overheated real bad...zap!

 

That really doesn't sound like the source will be hard to find once you fill it with water and run it.

 

Yeah, hopefully the place we dropped it off at doesn't take him to the cleaners. I just have too much going on to mess with it right now. It is his only form of transportation, and he works weekends, so it is really hard for him to be without it. The more I think about it, it seems like it would have to be a hose or something. If the water pump went, it seems like it wouldn't run right, or I would be able to hear it making noise.

 

If the rest of his cooling system is maintained to the level of his rusted coolant, he'd be lucky if JUST an internally distressed hose blew up.