Guest Island Son Posted February 18, 2004 Share Posted February 18, 2004 Hello All, A question that i can not seem to get answered around here. Mod's if this is deemed inaproprate for here please feel free to do with it what you must, but i figure this is my last chance to get an answer to this question. OK 1995 Lumina 3100, 230000 klicks on it, at the end of Nov i replaced the head gaskets, everthing went without a hitch, all of Dec the car worked perfectly, then the first week of Jan it starts to over heat on me, i replaced the thermastat, no difference, still over heating. What happens is, in the morning after the car has been sitting all night i have to release the rad cap to let the presure off of the system and them replace the fluid that it blows out onto the ground, bleed the system of air for 20 minutes or so and i'm good to go for my trip to work (about 45 min drive) then after work i have to repeat the process all over again, i work a 10.5 hour shifts. So after a month of doing this it's desided that the water pump is fubar so in goes a new water pump, again no difference, i still have to repeat the above process. Now it's getting worse and no one around here seems to know what to do. It apears that when the car sits for the night or an extended period of time it builds up presure within the cooling system, we've done a presure test on the rad and it will hold 15 lbs no problem. One garage says that it's either a cracked head, witch we checked when i replaced the gaskets and everything looked ok, now that's not to say that there was a hairline crack that we may have missed, another suggestion was perhaps the block itself is cracked, the reason they suggested this two things is there tested the rad fluid for carbonmonoxside and the fellow said that there was carbonmonoxside in the antifreeze. Someone else suggested to replace the rad, i'll do whatever needs to be done to get it working properly but i'm not real fond of just throwing my money away if i don't have to. Not sure why but if i drive the car in drive and NOT over-drive it will help keep the temp down to below the half where it is normaly (that's around 2500 rpm) but if i drive it in OD at 1600rpm the temp gets to the point of hot and you either have to pull over or get the rpms up in order to bring the temp back to where it should be. But once you have to car going at the proper operating temp and heat coming from the heater it will work just fine all day long. If anyone requires more information just let me know i'll try to fill in the blanks. Thanks in Advance Sonny Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted February 18, 2004 Share Posted February 18, 2004 Usually you check for HC's in the antifreeze. If the shop you're dealing with has a smog machine or a "sniffer" for finding AC leaks, they can check the coolant for HC with either of those. Sounds like what you said: blown headgasket, cracked head, or cracked block. Headgasket would obviously be the most likely. Did you retorque the head bolts? Sounds like it's going to have to be pulled apart again. Maybe someone with a little more experience with those motors will chime in too. Jon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Island Son Posted February 18, 2004 Share Posted February 18, 2004 Thx for the reply Jon, I haven't retorqued the heads as of yet, there is no leakage anywhere external that we can find, and the oil is good and clean, so there's no coolent getting in there, we don't have to deal with the smog reg's that you guys do down there so i'm not sure if there's a shop around with a sniffer or not, i will ask around tho. This has everyone around here scratching there heads wondering what it is, i'm leaning toward a head but don't want to jump the gun if that's not the problem. Again thx for the reply Sonny Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim240z Posted February 18, 2004 Share Posted February 18, 2004 Yup, my $$$ would be on loose head bolts. If you did not retorque the head bolts, then the heating and cooling cycles of the engine would lose the torque on the bolts. Since you ran for a month or so with no problems, I would guess that there are no cracks, unless one just appeared, but if you 'missed' the crack during inspection at rebuild time, the problem would have most likely shown itself earlier. I would pull and replace the head gasket (check for obvious signs of blowthrough). Then remember to retorque after a few hundred miles. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike kZ Posted February 18, 2004 Share Posted February 18, 2004 Make sure the head gasket is on the right way, if you put it on wrong you could have covered a cooling hole or 2. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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