Hi, I just had the head gasket replaced on my 1991 Plymouth Sundance RS
2.5 TBI 3-spd auto back in the middle of December 2004. The car had
196,000 miles. Before the head gasket was repaired, I had apparently
been getting water in the oil giving it the appearance of a chocolate
milkshake.

Now, here's the story:

The blown head gasket was diagnosed back in July 2004. I couldn't
afford to fix it at the time. The only symptoms I had at the time was
exhaust gases getting into the coolant causing it to overflow into the
puke tank due to the pressure; no milky oil. However, before this
happened, the only symptoms of a blowd head gasket I had was bubbles in
the puke tank. Anyway, after it was diagnosed, I continued to drive it.
Eventually, I started getting billowing white smoke out of the exhaust.
And, lastly, at the end of October 2004, I apparently started to get
some coolant in the oil (I don't think I had too much ethylene glycol
in there, though, because I ran the car on pure tap water after the
coolant started to leak out bad and kept adding water every other day).
At first I didn't know that this was the case. I just noticed that my
oil started to look a bit dirty and funny, so I figured that since the
oil was in there for over six months, it was a bit old, and I would
change it when I got around to it. I also noticed that my car was
skipping when I first started it.

Later on, one day at Wal-Mart during my lunch break, I decided to take
my car over to TLE (Tire Lube Express) to get the oil changed. While
I'm in the lounge eating my lunch, the TLE associate pages me to come
over there. Holding the oil dipstick, the person tells me that I need
to take a look at something. So, I go out there with him to the TLE bay
and see what's up. When the fellow inserted the dipstick into oil, the
oil came back looking like Chocolate Milk! The level on the stick was
also 2 inches above the full mark. He also opened the oil cap, and
there were white goblets inside the valve cover looking like someone
had done liposuction in the engine. He opened the radiator cap and told
me that the radiator was empty. They said that they couldn't changed
oil due to liability reasons or something like that. His partner told
me told me that the head gasket was ..beyond.. gone amd that I needed
to get it fixed IMMEDIATELY. He said something about it affecting the
bottom end or something (though I'm not sure). He also mentioned that
the engine needed to be flushed as well. Anyway, I hop into the car and
drive to the repair shop immediately.

After two weeks, the car was fixed. They told me that cylinder 1 was
full of water. They also did a valve job on the head, and they shaved
it as well since it was warped. The machine shop also cleaned the head.
Suprisingly, the head was not even cracked considering the engine
overheated over a dozen times in that year! I think that they might
have also flushed the engine as well to get all the goblets/sludge out.
Otherwise, they said that the engine is still solid.

Anyway, after the repair, the car seems to run pretty well as far as I
can tell.

Do you think that I did any damage to the motor by driving with water
in the oil? What usually happens when you drive a car with coolant in
the oil? I think that I drove it like that for around 30 miles or so
before I got the head gasket replaced.