Howdy all! I have a 11 of 87 sammy with 150K+ on it and it blew a head gasket back in October. It was my daily driver untill then, then I put her in the garage till about two weeks ago. I pulled the head in November, took it to a reputable machine shop, everything good. Bought some parts online from Cali, and another 87 zuki that had been rolled for spare parts. I put everthing back together..in 15 degree temps (garage not heated) everything went together great after a good cleaning, and it ran fairly good, a little doggy but not bad. I drove it around, changed the oil and coolant once more, and thought everything was good. Drove to work (95 miles one way) no problems at all, but the return trip netted me with overheating, checked the coolant, almost one gallon low and down by 3 qts. oil   Plus the return of some white goo on the dipstick, and brown goo in the coolant. Filled everything back up and it stayed cool, no knocking or anything, it even ran a bit better!!!! It's once again my DD, so i'm up in the air on what to do next.....

Check the torque on all the head bolts first. The head gasket has to be leaking somewhere. If you find any loose bolts at least you will know why. The head will have to come off again regardless. You can't trust a head gasket once it has leaked. Once the head is off check it and the block very carefully for cracks and inspect the head gasket sometimes you can see the spot where they leak (kind of shiny).If you see an area like this zone in on that spot on the block and head and see if there is a problem there.Did the machine shop straight edge the head to check for warpage?You can also pull the sparkplugs and see if there is a washed one.Make sure the block is very clean when you reassemble it. I like to use emery cloth on the deck surface so I know all the junk is cleaned off.Good luck 

Sounds good, the head was checked for straitness and it was in really good shape. I guess I got something to look forward to tomarrow as I have the day off anyways. It's too bad that I can't get another gasket right away, there really isn't anybody around here with any parts on hand. I was very careful not to contaminate anything when I re-installed the head, I'm kinda picky about how clean things are when it comes to having my name on the work, but I'm only human and we make mistakes!!! Thank you for your help!!!

you can also get water and oil mix with a bad intake gasket

Really, I didn't know of such a thing.....I do remember the intake gasket being really flimsy compared to other gaskets......more to check out tomarrow! Thank you for your help!!!!

you can also get water and oil mix with a bad intake gasket

Maybe I am missing something. But How?

had one start leaking and it took out the head gasket .  it turned out to be a split intake gasket leaking coolant into number one

Do any of you suspect this trouble because of assembly in 15-20 degree weather?

I don't think so unless your fingers were so cold you couldn't feel what your doing

I don't think so, I live in Alberta and I've bolted stuff together in really cold conditions. I suspect bad luck caused it that's all.I always use a thin bead of silicone on all my intake gaskets it helps them seal better and sometimes you can pull stuff apart and reuse the gasket because it doesn't stick.

They were quite warm, The Mid-West winters don't bother me one bit, I do enjoy the cold after spending a year in Iraq!!

I have put RTV on intake gaskets before.......I was thinking of doing it with this one too, but I didn't know of how well it would have cured with the low temps.

I think I found the problem, there are three frost plugs under the camshaft and once i pulled the valve cover, it was clear as day that one is leaking. I didn't think it was too serious because there was a small amount of mixed oil/coolant in the water jackets that I couldn't remove, but I still can't figure out where the oil is going, as it used to have the typical distributor housing leak, but that was repaired with the head gasket