Car Problem, not with the G tho. Need some help guys. :(

[pfarmer]

It's not the H2O pump, I've ruled that out. I don't know if I can tell if the exhaust is putting out steam or not when it's cold outside...exhaust when it's cold outside is always white. I don't think that's a possibility, coolant getting into the combustion cycle because that doesn't explain the smoke/steam/whatever coming from the engine bay, at least to me it doesn't.

It starts to smoke/steam/whatever after the car has been running for about 10 minutes or longer, once the engine has had a chance to warm up.

That's what I'm worried about with the temp gauge, is that it's getting a false reading due to possible low flow or something. I can't get my wife's thermo because well I'm not not married. The only thermo I have is one of those two pronged meat ones and it's not even mine. I guess I could try that, touch it to the engine itself.

Ugh, I hate this car! I really do, I want my G back. American cars after 10 years old are complete crap, or maybe it's just because the rest of my family doesn't partake in preventative maintenance except oil changes.

If the exhaust is always white that could be a concern depending on what you mean by 'cold outside'. You didn't mention the action of the overflow tank (which by the way you do want to check the hose to it), the feel of the suction hose to the water pump, nor the look of the oil. As far as a 10 year old American car, well my last Japanese car got 175 k while my last American car, the one I drove from about 150k lasted until about 320 k. I gave up after it went underwater and finally lost a rear axle bearing. It still ran fine however, no oil use, no water leaks, although the engine was starting to get a little noisy. Most of my old cars were retired for various reasons around the 200k mark. I drive them moderately and change oil and filters often. Other than that mostly repair things as they die such as batteries, alternators, starters, etc. I typically get about 75-100 k on brakes, and about 40-50 k on tires.

One of the main reasons I picked the G was I wanted a car capable of doing somewhere around 150 since I was going to mostly drive at about half that, I figured it should last a long time at those speeds. I rarely let a car warm up by idling, rather driving very easy until they warm up to normal operating temperatures and that includes the transmission/rearend, etc.

Perry

[smockers83]

How about single digits. Right now it's -6. It was -7 last night with a -23 windchill, I wasn't going to go out and check out your possibilities. I'll have to wait til the weekend, it's way too cold.

[tollboothwilley]

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I don't think I'm overheating because I can stick my hand pretty close to the engine and keep it there, plus the temp gauge doesn't indicate overheating (indicates normal temps). The fans kick in, too, like normal. I know it's all based on the coolant temp but if coolant is flowing and it's temp is normal, I can't be overheating can I? I mean if it weren't flowing, the temp gauge would probably indicate the engine not warming up at all, correct? I didn't notice anything weird about the oil when I took the dipstick out.

I'm second guessing the smell I smell is not coolant...I'm getting someone else to smell it to see if they can determine what it is.

Smuckers

It sounds to me like it is NOT a headgasket. You would see an abnormal amount of white smoke from the tail lights, most likely water in the oil (choco milk) and your car would read hot.

What it sounds like to me is that you have a hose that runs back to the radiator that has developed a crack. Most likely it is at a joint or where a clamp is.

You should know what fluid is leaking simply by checking the fluid levels. If you are constantly low on coolant then thats what it is.

[smockers83]

Well, me and my brother took a look at it last week and couldn't really tell where the leak was coming from. We assumed it was from the thermostat housing, which we later figured was the most probable because the thermo that was in there had a seal, but there was no gasket. Well that didn't solve the problem. Now something else is going on, causing no flow to the heater core and the engine is on the verge of over heating after 10 minutes. I can't let the car run and run the heater because that just won't work. I turned it off tonight on my way home (first happened on my way to my GF's) and the fans stayed on. I'll be checking the oil in the morning when it's cooled off. Anybody want to put money down with me that the head gasket finally had a complete failure?

Looks like I'll be getting the G out of storage for the rest of winter, which, honestly, the way this car has gone, I will be very glad.

[zozoka1212]

I had my money on the headgasket from the start.

zozo

[pfarmer]

Well, me and my brother took a look at it last week and couldn't really tell where the leak was coming from. We assumed it was from the thermostat housing, which we later figured was the most probable because the thermo that was in there had a seal, but there was no gasket. Well that didn't solve the problem. Now something else is going on, causing no flow to the heater core and the engine is on the verge of over heating after 10 minutes. I can't let the car run and run the heater because that just won't work. I turned it off tonight on my way home (first happened on my way to my GF's) and the fans stayed on. I'll be checking the oil in the morning when it's cooled off. Anybody want to put money down with me that the head gasket finally had a complete failure?

Looks like I'll be getting the G out of storage for the rest of winter, which, honestly, the way this car has gone, I will be very glad.

Not sure how that car is plumb but some are set up so you will not have flow to the heater core without flow to the radiator. If you took out the thermostat, did you put it in rightside up? If not then no flow past that part that causes it to open means it will never open.

Perry

[smockers83]

Yeah, it's in the right way. It has worked from Monday when we put it in up until now.

Is the heater core an auxiliary system or is it inline like the radiator is? I'm wondering because if there's a blockage in the heater core, then all the coolant is backed up and not flowing, therefore leading up to overheating. Possible?

[pfarmer]

Yeah, it's in the right way. It has worked from Monday when we put it in up until now.

Is the heater core an auxiliary system or is it inline like the radiator is? I'm wondering because if there's a blockage in the heater core, then all the coolant is backed up and not flowing, therefore leading up to overheating. Possible?

The heater core should never impact the flow through the radiator in any car. Again not sure on this particular car but some will 't' off of the same side of the thermostat as the radiator so not much more then any bypass flow will flow through it when the thermostat is closed. This usually isn't all that difficult to see, the heater lines are usually very small compared to other cooling lines, maybe 1/2 or 3/4 inch. Also consider that they often have a temperature control valve in line with it. If your car overheats it often benefits to turn up the heat to full and open the windows if necessary.

Now how are you determining you have a blockage of water versus no water to block? Don't trust what you see in the overflow tank as indication of the water level in the rest of the system. Water flows to the tank by pressure and leaves the tank by suction. When you turn off the car and it cools down the pressure in the tank will be greater than the pressure in the system and water will flow from the tank (at atmos pressure in an unpressurized system) to the main coolant system. A leak in the main coolant system will not allow this to occur since the main coolant system will not every get to less than atmos pressure. This is the reason I said to check the line going to the tank for leaks.

What you will see is that while the tank may gain level from the coolant system when the car is hot it will not necessarily obtain a lower level from flow back to the system when cold. Remember however that the line to the tank is not the only thing that will cause this to occur, any leak on the main system can have the same effect.

Perry

[tollboothwilley]

I don't understand why you can't run your heater while the engine is running, maybe I misread something? If you have a problem with your heater core you could be losing fluid there and air bleeding into the system keeping the engine temps up. This would make finding the leak much more difficult but you would start to get "foggy" windshield for the coolant most likely.

[C-Kwik]

I have an idea. If its a V6, which I speculate it would be based on engine size, it might be designed similarly to some of the V-8's from that period. Look at the intake manifold. My mom's van and dad's work truck (same motor) both had a leak where the coolant makes its way into the intake manifold. The mechanic told is this is a common issue with the V-8's as the coolant actually eats away at stuff. In any case, he replaced the gasket and cleaned up the mating surfaces, put it back together and its been fine since. He did warn us that we should expect the problem to return at some point down the line as there isn't a permanent fix.

Its quite possible your motor has a similar layout and design and could have a similar type of problem. Just throwing it out there. I'd imagine it would be much easier to get to it than my paren't cars as they require most engine access through the cab. And even then working space on top of the engine sucks. Which is why we took it to someone rather than handle it ourselves.

[smockers83]

Well the tank after a few days from filling it to the cold line will be pretty much empty when cold. But I checked the radiator this morning and I filled it back up, it was lower again. After doing that and topping off the external tank to the cold line, I used about half a jug of pre-mixed coolant. The leak isn't by the external tank or it's lines because it's on the passenger's side.

Now I did this accidentally this morning, but I started the car without the radiator cap on, but I read somewhere that if coolant splashes out or something, either that was good or bad, can't remember. But coolant wasn't splashing out.

I couldn't use the heat to help cool it down because all it was doing was blowing cold air, which I would assume would mean that coolant wasn't flowing to the heater core. I don't get a "foggy" windshield or anything.

C-Kwik, I will look into what you mentioned.

You guys are awesome, thanks a lot for dealing with me.

[tollboothwilley]

How far back is the dripping coming from? firewall or back of engine?

Sounds like you have a tube leaking between the engine and the firewall. My guess would be the T-connection that sits on the back of the engine which branches off to the firewall and then goes into the heater core.

When the hoses get ~10 years old it seems that they start to deteriorate and you get cracks. Of course it can happen sooner/later than that but it def. seems like this is your problem to me.

The location is a hard to reach area, so good luck with that. It would be nice to have a lift in situations like this.