how much abuse can one motor take

[ed70]

i have a 350 or 400 sbc in my truck...(we haven really checked the numbers to tell... everything is leading to a 400) ne way i over heated it the other day the temp was reading 240 and i was spraying antifreeze out the over flow... well the motor held up and i still drive it... today i pecked my temp gauge to 250 for like 15-20 min on the highway before i could get stopped to check it(i had forgot to put the cap back on my radiator before i left for work i added water and continued to work that i was late for and checked the oil and the motor still hadnt blown a head gasket... now i made a phone call to ask the previous owner if the motor had been gone through to make sure i wouldn need to crack it oopen and rebuild it my self later cause i know this isn good for the head gaskets one bit... well turns out the motor has never been rebuilt... well i know for now the gaskets are good... but he also informed me that he had over heatd it in that same matter like 4 or 5 times in his owner ship of the truck... all in all i think the truck has been through hell and im going to need a motor soon but i just wanted to share how incredibley impressed i am that this old motor can with stand that abuse so many times and still hold its own on a 60 mile road trip everyday.. lol cross my fingers i hope i didnt just jinx myself... i believe its just been luck


ne one else got a funny or scary story about over heating?