Advice needed: I bought a '64 town panel with a slant 6 for parts (my main oldie is a '59 D100 pickup). It had been parked in a field for some years but the prior owner had it running just before I towed it home. I drained the oil and found a lot of water in the crankcase and the classic chocolate milkshake look.
I wouldn't mind getting it into driving condition just for giggles, but only if it costs less than a couple hundred dollars. Considering what I found in the crankcase is there much point in continuing, or should I just go ahead with plan A and part it out?

Water can get in there from a bad head gasket or a cracked block from freezing and cracking due to lack of antifreeze or from a accumulation from condensation over time by not using a thermostat. My 74 was that way when I bought it. Solid white milkshake for oil. I drained it, installed a new oil filter, a 195 degree thermostat and some Valvoline 30 weight and drove it another 180,000. You might get lucky. Fill it up with oil and a new filter and crank it up to see what happens.......you never know......

_________________
Aggressive Ted

http://cid-32f1e50ddb40a03c.photos.live ... %20Swinger


74 Swinger, 9.5 comp 254/.435 lift cam, 904, ram air, electric fans, 2.5" HP2 & FM70 ex, 1920 Holley#56jet, 2.76 8 3/4 Sure-Grip, 26" tires, 25+MPG

How full is the radiator? That should give you a clue wether the water came from the cooling system or otherwise.

Remove the sparkplugs and crank it - as long as you don't see anything gushing out, I would top everything off and run it. The worse that will happen is you have to rebuild or swap, which sounds like your already planning on doing. Keep a careful eye on the rad level.

They make kits that hold a special liquid - it fits in a container you put in place of the radiator cap - the air from the top of the radiator enters the container. If the air has combustion gases in it, it will react with the liquid and turn a color to make it obvious.

as long as the cooling system is full and doesn't have the same milkshake appearance you should be fine like the others say top it off run it and see what happens

_________________
Nothing beats a slant six
1987 D150

The radiator was dry when I got it...I filled it and it isn't leaking onto the ground, at least. I haven't tried to crank it yet but will soon...
Thanks for your advice!

Drain out all the fluids, and install some of Dan's soup recipe. Then drop the oil pan and clean the pump pickup and scrape the goo out of the oil pan. At worst you may need a head gasket from the sounds of it. Our old plymouth had the "milkshake" in it and we flushed it out, changed fluids, and drove it 5 more years.

_________________
If it was easy, everybody would be doing it.