got a 1994 chevy with a 305 tbi, kid i'm workin on it for says he adds coolant, comes back coolant is low and its getting into the oil, he bought a gasket kit i figure it could be headgasket but a couple of people have told me its probably a cracked block. the truck sat WITH coolant in it just want a couple of opinions on whether it would really be a cracked block engine has less than 80k miles on it  

Generally the block does not crack but heads are know too when overheated badly. I would not preach gloom and doom here and would pull head off and see what you are dealing with. It could just be a bad head gasket or possibly a crack head but it is very unlikely that block is cracked.  

I'm with Sno, doubt it's the block. You have to really blow something up good to crack a block (most of the time). It's likely either a head or head gasket. Really only one way to find out for sure...  

This brings back bad memories. 305 chevy engine block cracks inside lifter bore area up towards waterjacket area. I've had this paticular type engine do this to me 8 times. Pull the intake and look into block at waterjacket area. Look for white/green crust in a line or spiderweb looking crust formation. The driver side seems to crack first for some reason. One theory is the blocks are made of cheaper material meaning more tin in block instead of nickle in the cast iron. I once helped a friend with a 305 and had the same problem. This is what we found. later went to salvage yard and bought another 305 block cleaned and checked for cracks and found the same problem and this happened 8 times before we found a good one. The sad part is we were fixing this truck to sell. A lot of work to sell a truck. I was just helping out for free. I acid dipped the blocks each time at machine shop and magnafluxed each block to make sure we didn't miss any problems. A lot of work for a friend but he was worth it. One of those chevy problems you don't want to hear about.  

One other thing is it was in a 1993 chevy pickup. Noticed yours was a 1994, really close on the year.  

I would question if maybe enough antifreeze was used when block cracks from freezing.The fact they they were from a salvage yard would tend to suggest that they had some water in blocks and froze and did damage to them.  

those 94 chevs are pretty good about bad intake gaskets. we probably do one a month in the shop i work in. id start there, but im sure once the intake is off youll see where its been leaking. you might as well plan on buying the fitting that screws into the back of the intake on the pass side. you can re-use it, but chances are better than not it will leak  

i took it all apart, didn't find any spots that looked like leaks in head gaskets, the kid had already pulled the intake off himself, that maybe have been the leak but the oil was right full of coolant, no cracks in lifter galley or anything like that, but i dropped him in a good 305 i had lying around  

I lived in houston tx. not to much on freezing down that way. forgot to mention that. good point.  

wyomingtrailheader:
I lived in houston tx. not to much on freezing down that way. forgot to mention that. good point.

I was stationed in Texas in early 70's for a year and I was amazed to see the amount of cars that did not even have antifreeze in them. The one winter I was there they had a cold snap were it got down to 18 one night and the next day there was dead/overheating cars all over the place with frozen/split radiators.