Greetings all!

My grandfather gave me a 94 b3000 with about 250k miles on it. He upgraded his hunting truck so he passed down his old hunting truck.

When I was driving it on the highway, it started to lose engine power when I was going uphill. I was able to pull it over into a gas station at the next exit. When I cut the truck off, the cabin was being filled with some white "smoke". I opened the hood and this was the scenario.

I'm assuming it's a blown head gasket. What are my next options?
This isn't a daily driver, more of a project car to work on/work truck. Is it worth it to pull the engine, swap the engine, etc?

I'm pretty handy. I've never installed an engine before but I have the confidence that I could take (almost) anything apart with the help of the worldwideweb.

This is my first post on any website like this so I apologize if I missed any step here!
Thanks

 

Welcome to the forum

If there was "while smoke" in the cab then you blew a coolant hose

White "smoke" at the tail pipe is head gasket issue, blown head gasket won't show any signs under the hood

Did the engine over heat(temp gauge) and how hot did it get while driving to the gas station?
If an engine is run HOT for too long then you WILL blow a head gasket

Refill with water and find out what hose broke

 

It was a cold night so I was not able to tell if there was anything abnormal going on at the tailpipe. It did run hot, but it did not peak before I pulled it over.
When I got the truck, the temp gauge did not work. I changed the thermostat first, no change. Then I changed the temp sensor a couple of days before this happened.

The very first movement that I saw of the temp gauge was the day that this happened. I only have a 3 minute drive to work so I don't know if I ever gave it the time to show a lot of movement.

In the video that I attached, it shows where this smoke/steam is coming out of.

 

Looks like a Core Plug(freeze plug) on the block rusted out and you lost coolant, for sure not a head gasket issue

It can be replaced with a rubber expansion plug

 

Gotcha.

Before ripping it down to replace that, what other things should I look at replacing while there?

 

Nothing really, I think there is only the one core plug on that side

If you put water in radiator it should pour out of that location

You can push the rusted out core plug into the block if you can't pull it out, it will NOT hurt anything, it will NOT block flow

On the passenger side there are two core plugs, you may want to have a look at those for rusting before refilling the cooling system
And I would refill with water, tap water is fine, and drive it for a day or two(as long as its above freezing temps outside), to make sure there are no other leaks, then you can drain it and refill with coolant

The coolant to use will be silicate based which needs to be changed every 2 years, its often green in color

Pull off 1 heater hose at the firewall when refilling, that lets the air out of the engine as water/coolant goes in
Reverse heater hoses at the firewall every 2 years when you change the coolant, this will make the heater core last longer

 

AJ, what does the smoke smell like, burnt oil, and/or exhaust ?
Ron pretty knows what he's talking about all the time, but from what I'm seeing in the video, it looks like you have a failed exhaust manifold gasket and oil is also leaking from the valve cover gasket on the manifold itself.