nequamminor Posted February 18, 2008 Report Share Posted February 18, 2008 I drove from my home town to Fort Wayne over the weekend and back. Defiance to Fort Wayne is about 50 miles one way, just for reference. The temp gauge fluctuated constantly. I had my water inlet part replaced with a new gasket beforehand. I had the reservoir filled up past the hot mark. Drove to fort wayne and came back that night. Checked my coolant this morning before I left, and the reservoir was empty. I couldn't see any coolant at all in the radiator either. Checked the oil and it looked clear and pretty clean. I filled it back up, thinking it could have possibly been a lot of air in the system. Drove the car to K-Mart and came back. I checked it again when I got back, and the coolant in the reservoir dropped a good inch and a half. That was roughly a 12 mile drive. The coolant is burning off on the driver's side of the engine. It looks like the steam is coming from underneath the exhaust manifold. What is leaking coolant this fast? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nequamminor Posted February 19, 2008 Author Report Share Posted February 19, 2008 I drove the car today just until the thermostat opened today and looked at the quick connect fitting, as well as a vertical piece of heater hose. Neither showed any signs of leaking. There was a small puddle of coolant on top of the transmission though. It seems like the coolant is coming from below the exhaust manifold somewhere. Does anyone have any clue where it could be leaking from? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ns87 Posted February 19, 2008 Report Share Posted February 19, 2008 What kind of engine is it? I'm guessing head gasket if its leaking down there. I'm no engine expert though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nequamminor Posted February 19, 2008 Author Report Share Posted February 19, 2008 Its a '95 LQ1 but I took it to the tranny shop where I got that tranny and they pressure tested it. We couldn't find any fluid at all. The gauge didn't drop much at all either over the course of about 10 minutes. I filled it up to the cold mark before I left for the shop, when I got there it was at the same spot. The guy who looked it over with me said it was probably still working air out of the system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IRONDOG442 Posted February 19, 2008 Report Share Posted February 19, 2008 I am betting head gasket or intake seal ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ns87 Posted February 19, 2008 Report Share Posted February 19, 2008 For what its worth, I've never had an intermittent problem go away or work itself out. It always seems to come back. If it keeps leaking I would look into LIM or headgasket. Be very careful not to overheat your car. And last but not least, until you figure it out, carry extra coolant! There are a couple of Texas members here. Maybe you can have a W body meet and fix your car. We have a tendency here to buy food as payment for help Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R Dubya Posted February 19, 2008 Report Share Posted February 19, 2008 have you checked your oil lately?? good first step to make sure you aren't ruining your internals. I know nothing about the LQ1 but I will say that it sounds like a head gasket if it's burning off under the exhaust manifold. FWIW pressure testing will not always indicate a failed head gasket. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nequamminor Posted February 20, 2008 Author Report Share Posted February 20, 2008 There's a catch to this whole story. While I did smell coolant, I am so used to smelling burning oil that that didn't occur to me at the time it could be that. My LQ1 has a bad o-ring leak where that dummy distributor is. Sometimes it'll leave a 5 inch puddle under the car. When it was in the shop today, the mechanic put it up on the lift and we didn't see any coolant whatsoever. I've checked the oil and it looks good. No milkyness at all. It may still be the intake, but I've looked at schematics in my w-body manual, and the intake is not in that area, so I'm doubtful. Also, as far as a head gasket goes, I've personally lurked around on 60 * V6 for quite some time, as well as on MyMonte and ClubGP and I can't remember ever hearing about a 3.4 DOHC that head a head gasket go bad. As far as the W body meet goes, that would be awesome, but I live in NW Ohio, which isn't very close to Texas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ns87 Posted February 20, 2008 Report Share Posted February 20, 2008 Whoops, I thought it said Fort Worth LOL. There's some Ohio people floating around here too though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gp90se Posted February 20, 2008 Report Share Posted February 20, 2008 my LQ1 leaks at the crossover pipe in front of the engine onto the exhaust manifold, leaves no drops, and sounds similar to what your talking about. i rigged it up for now, but look on your manifold for a discolored area Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Psych0matt Posted February 20, 2008 Report Share Posted February 20, 2008 sounds like mine, only I'm dumping in about a gallon or more a day right now. I have a meeting in the morning, then stopping by the shop to have them check it out. If I can fix it myself, Ken is coming over thursday night to help out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nequamminor Posted February 21, 2008 Author Report Share Posted February 21, 2008 Well, I think you guys were right. I went to school today, and I just got back a little bit ago. When I left, it was above the cold, now the reservoir is almost empty. Another thing I found interesting was when I looked at the engine again, I think I see the intake gasket along with the LIM? If it is the LIM, it looks much cleaner then the rest of teh car and has a number written on it. Something was replaced I think before I got to this car. Any thoughts on this? Keep in your mind the car has 196xxx on it. Brand new transmission. I really don't want to condemn it... mainly because I like it a lot, but also because I can't really afford to either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IRONDOG442 Posted February 26, 2008 Report Share Posted February 26, 2008 There's a catch to this whole story. While I did smell coolant, I am so used to smelling burning oil that that didn't occur to me at the time it could be that. My LQ1 has a bad o-ring leak where that dummy distributor is. Sometimes it'll leave a 5 inch puddle under the car. When it was in the shop today, the mechanic put it up on the lift and we didn't see any coolant whatsoever. I've checked the oil and it looks good. No milkyness at all. It may still be the intake, but I've looked at schematics in my w-body manual, and the intake is not in that area, so I'm doubtful. Also, as far as a head gasket goes, I've personally lurked around on 60 * V6 for quite some time, as well as on MyMonte and ClubGP and I can't remember ever hearing about a 3.4 DOHC that head a head gasket go bad. As far as the W body meet goes, that would be awesome, but I live in NW Ohio, which isn't very close to Texas. NW Ohio pwns the rest of the forum members locations !!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nequamminor Posted March 7, 2008 Author Report Share Posted March 7, 2008 So today we are going to try to fix whatever the car's problem is. I figured I would change the oil first to see if I can see anything coolant-wise at the bottom of the pan. What I pull out on the dipstick looks good. I have a LIM gasket kit, and I'm buying the dummy drive o-ring today as well. However, we were looking for the leak again recently, and I could smell coolant in the engine bay a little bit. We have yet to find this leak at all. Another weird thing we found out is that sometimes when its running, the reservoir has bubbles coming up steadily. (coolant escaping right?) We turned it off, and started it back up about 10 minutes later. No bubbles forming at all. What would cause that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canada Posted March 9, 2008 Report Share Posted March 9, 2008 Before you start throwing gaskets are your car and butcher it all up trying to replace them, I would take it to a repair shop that does that sort of thing. If you can't find the leak, I' doubting you have the mechanical ability to properly repair a lower intake gasket. I honestly don't have a clue what your picture is of. It has me lost. That number written on it looks like its from the factory.......I don't anything was replaced like that. With 200k miles, who knows. And again.....what engine even is this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockfangd Posted March 9, 2008 Report Share Posted March 9, 2008 the best thing to do is a cooling system pressure test Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nequamminor Posted March 12, 2008 Author Report Share Posted March 12, 2008 We replaced the intake gasket on the engine successfully, however it wasn't leaking. It looked like it was replaced with Fel-Pro or Fel-Pro look-alike gaskets. (GM?) I don't know, however they looked very recent. We also noticed that the picture I took is of the heads, and they appear to be near brand new. That would explain the timing belt being in very good condition. However the oil distributor gasket had oil all around it. The O-Ring on the oil pump drive wasn't replaced, but it didn't look like the majority of the oil was coming from that area. We also found out that there is a mismatched injector on the engine. It wont properly clip onto the fuel rail either. Car runs good with the injector, and the injector will be replaced with the proper one once I get money. However, today I saw a spot of coolant on the ground where my car was parked, it looked like it would've dripped down from the rear of the engine. Where could coolant come from the back of the engine? Heater hoses? Any particular spots you could think of? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pontiac6KSTEAWD Posted March 12, 2008 Report Share Posted March 12, 2008 Throttle body heater lines, Heater Core, water pump. This are the easiest, and also the most common problems for the 60* motor (except for the TB heater lines). My heater was out, not leaking on the inside, but where the rubber line connects to it. Took me some time to track that SOB down too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nequamminor Posted March 24, 2008 Author Report Share Posted March 24, 2008 Its leaking just underneath the exhaust manifold under the throttle body. Right around where the quick connect fitting goes into the lower intake manifold. This is a '95 LQ1 for the record as well. LQ1 = 3.4 TDC or DOHC. However, since we redid the intake gaskets, it won't smoke if I'm keeping the rpms under 2.5k or so. If I drive a little more aggressive, smoke will billow out from under the hood. Then the more I get on it, the worse it smokes. Could the quick connect fitting leak worse as pressure in the cooling system increases? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DOHCRagtopguy Posted March 25, 2008 Report Share Posted March 25, 2008 How about a leaky freeze plug? I believe there are a couple of those in the area that you describe. By the way you can't change the dummy shaft 'o' ring on the LQ-1 correctly without pulling the head off. There are other ways to fix it though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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