86 4x4 Misses

[desertrunnr41]

Hey guys, My 22r suddenly developed a miss and sounds like its running on 3 cylinders. Im not a mechanic but my buddies are and im trying to get some leads. A little background on the problem. First indication of something wrong....a feeling of the idle being a bit low at a few stoplights and then with the stereo cranked..heard some horrible knocking sounds. Luckily was just a few blocks from home and made it. It starts up but shakes very bad and the smell of incomplete combustion from the tail pipe with bluish smoke..not bad..but some. We replaced the plugs, wires, distributor with no luck solving the problem. Buddy thinks its a head gasket issue as there was a leak that stopped after some Bars leak. I do have some fluid on the drivers side floorboard that seems to be a bit worse. It was heating up but took it on a trip to vegas, 4 hour drive from here in 100 degree weather without an A/C and it didnt go thru any coolant..which was a suprise. After reading several posts from here I gather my problem may be..warped head, leaking gasket, or a leak in the gasket between 2 cylinders. Possibly EGR or PCV? All vaccum hoses seem to be fine. Was told possibly a vaccum hose under the manifold somewhere is the problem? When the problem started a buddy told em to check the oil dipstick and see if it was touching the distributor cap...It was touching it, but when I got it home, first thing i did was check the oil and I may have replaced it touching the distributor cap so dont know if that was an issue. BTW..what would happen if the dipstick was touching the Cap? I figured it fried something. Anyway, plugs were replaced in March and do have some carbon build up which were replaced with new ones yesterday. No water appears to be in the oil, no white smoke from the tailpipe, but plugs do appear to have a tiny bit of rust on em. I love the truck and welcome any advice from the experts out there, Thanks, Kevin

[texas12]

Where was the leak when you used the Bars Leak? That stuff is a temporary bandaid that you should use to give you an extra month or so before you rebuild or sell. What liquid is on the floor board? On the drivers side, I would suspect brake fluid and a leaking master cylinder.
Std or Auto?

[desertrunnr41]

Master cylinder is new..last few months. The fluid on floor is hard to tell....slow seapage from under the plastic or vinyl flooring thru a few worn spots. I bought the truck after it was sitting in a buddies garage with a broken transfer case. Case had shook apart and spewed fluid everywhere from the cracks and had assumed that seepage was just residual. I think the fluid would be coolant but hard to tell as it is a very small amount that has spread out over time by my foot. The truck is a 5 speed and I would rather not use bars leak myself..cus it is temporary..but heck..It worked...LOL

[desertrunnr41]

Head gasket it was

[texas12]

Sorry to hear it. Sounds like another weekend in the garage.