Ford F150

We do not have any real roads or automobiles here in Brevig.  But over in the nearby village of Teller (8 miles away by boat), they have cars and trucks.  From Teller it is a 75 mile drive on a gravel road to get to Nome.  My friend Randy has a truck that they keep over in Teller.  They use it to go back and forth to Nome to get supplies and take care of business in town

The truck is a 1985 F150 with a fuel injected 302 V8.  It has a lot of miles on it, but overall is in pretty good shape.  Recently it seemed to overheat after driving a few miles down the road.  They asked to me to take a look at it.  I took my boat over to Teller and checked it out.  The first thing that I found was a radiator that took 3 gallons to fill up.  It was also a couple quarts low on oil. 

I topped off the fluids and started it up.  It started fine and seemed to run good.  Then I noticed the huge clouds of smoke coming out the tail pipe.  There also seemed to be a lot of air bubbles coming out of the open radiator cap.  Looks like a bad head gasket.

I don't think I'll take this job.  There is no garage to put the truck in and the weather is starting to get cold.  This is not the kind of job I want to tackle outside.  I told Randy he should take 20 gallons of water and a case of oil with him and see if he can make it to Nome.  One of the auto repair shops there would be better equipped for this job.