Head gasket?

[nail pounder]

My truck has mostly been holding down the driveway while I've been finishing up our hardwood floors, but I took it out for an hour drive tonight just for fun. Then was just giving it an all over look. Its a 235. Now here's the symptoms. White slime in road draft tube, faint but consistent steam/smoke from tube. Same white slime under breather. Runs fine, doesn't run hot, oil looks like I should change it but that's about it. It has been sitting most of the time so I haven't noticed if my coolant level is dropping.

[mr48chev]

Could be either a bad head gasket, cracked head or cracked block.
Could also be and hopefully is just the result of condensation from starting the truck up in the driveway and moving it around the yard but not warming it up or just running a few blocks and shutting it off and running a few blocks back and shutting it off and never getting it out on the road and running it for a half hour or more.

Pull the drain plug and see if any quantity of water runs out before the oil starts running out. If you get a quart or two of coolant before you get oil (on the cold engine that has been setting overnight) you most likely have internal problems. just oil with maybe some of that stuff mixed in and I'd risk flushing it out, cleaning the draft tube and breather cap and put fresh oil in and give it a go.

The big issue with road draft tubes is they really don't work unless the vehicle is moving at road speeds where the air flow across the end of the tube draws the fumes out of the crankcase with a venturi effect. No air flow and they don't function.

[nail pounder]

Thanks for your thoughts mr48chev, I'm hoping it's the latter, I'll make time to change the oil and see what's in there.

[OrrieG]

Also take a look at the radiator to see if there is any oil in the coolant.

[mr48chev]

I'd pull the valve cover and clean it out while I was at it.

[nail pounder]

Good call on cleaning valve cover, how to I empty the oil out of the canister for the filter? The oil from the pan looks a little chocolaty, and had a slight oder of gas, just barley. I didn't see any coolant/water, it definitely wasn't separated, just a consistent oil texture. I don't see oil in the radiator, would I have to drain it to really look or will it be on top? On a not so funny side note, I recently bought a new pair of converse shoes, the old Chuck Taylor type to replace my thoroughly worn pair. Apparently they are popular again(according to my 12yr old)and quite expensive. I paid 65$, which is double what I paid for my last pair. Anyhow, I was dumping the old oil into a container to recycle it, the funnel tipped and I yard saled the oil all over my new Chuck's. I have somewhere to be in an hour, so now my shoes are in the garage sink and I gotta go change clothes. Quick little oil change gone terribly wrong.