'68 318 - Coolant left in heads when removed.

Traxfish said
I removed the heads from my 1968 318 Barracuda to take them to the shop and when I removed the heads a LOT of coolant spilled out, even though I let the radiator drain down completely. I can also see sitting coolant in the passages in the block. Is this normal? What is causing this?

This made a mess that I immediately cleaned up. I also am unsure if any coolant could have gotten in the oil. I believe the oil ports are all above the cylinders where oil would ramp down the head to the block over the cam. Should I also change the oil?

Almost all V8 engines do the same. Part of the problem is the bottom of the water pump outlets are fairly high on the front of the block. You may have some coolant in pockets by the lifters. Soak it up with a shop rag. You should be able to carefully remove the iol drain plug to drain out any coolant in the pan. If you drain half to a full quart of oil, not a big problem. Soak up coolant in the cylinders and blow out all sealed bolt holes (not open to the coolant). Then when you get it back together, run it for 20 to 30 minutes to get it warmed up. Change the oil. In about 1,000 miles change oil again. It takes a bit to get the coolant out of everywhere.
We had to deal with coolant contamination on the Detroit Diesel 92 series engines. Being a 2 stroke they had coolant seal rings just above the intake ports. In those engines the exhaust valves in the heads open a few degrees before the rings uncover the ports to blow down the cylinder. This meant there was still hot combustion gas in the cylinder by the seal rings. Eventually they deteriorated and leaked into the airbox. DD had also plumbed the airbox drains back into the oil pan to stop oil puddles under idling trucks overnight. Coolant in the oil is "corrosive" to bearings. When we overhauled these engines we used a bit of an industrial cleaner component called butyl cellosolve. This has a distinctive odour. We used only about 1/4 cup in 5 gallons of 10 weight oil and ran the engine for about 15 minutes. Then changed the oil and filter again with the regular weight oil. Probably hard to get a few ounces of butyl cellosolve so just change as I recommended.
As a note, ex wife had a 77 Impala with a 350. Change oil and drive around the block and it looked like it had 5,000.miles on it. Brought home a few ounces of butyl cellosolve and put it in the oil. Drove around for about half hour under light load before changing the oil. That cleaned out the engine and the oil would be dark brown at 3,000 mile oil change, instead of crow's butt black.