Thread: Coolant Elbow replacement gone horribly wrong

I saw the notorious plastic elbow on the 3.8's was starting to leak. Original at 160k miles, makes sense i guess. So took the alternator off easy, all the tensioner bolt came out fine. The tensioner was stuck on their like glue still. So I consulted youtube and they said just work at and keep wiggling at it. So i did for awhile, and the plastic elbow broke. Ok, whatever im replacing that. On this car there is only one plastic elbow, the bottom one is aluminum and part of the tensioner. That sounded like an improvement over the plastic, but uh, its not. Do keep in mind coolant on this car was not kept up, and nasty "dex sludge" stuff, opened the radiator cap and their is brown clay like stuff on the cap and caked on the side of the radiator. Anyway, The aluminum must have been all corroded because that thing would not budge. I fought and fought with it and eventually it came out. Ok so i went cleaning the plastic elbow remains out of the tensioner, and just happened to notice a piece of shiny metal laying near the water pump. It was a piece of the water pump housing, which then dawned on me that it looks like it is cast in the engine block! I believe I just ruined this motor, but if anyone has any sort of crazy idea to fix this, please let me know!! I can't get it to upload a picture either, says my quota is 168kb to much?

You probably broke the front cover. Not the end of the world, but definitely more work than what you wanted.

That's the bad part about the aluminum elbows. You'll never have this problem with the plastic ones.

Originally Posted by GTPpower

That's the bad part about the aluminum elbows. You'll never have this problem with the plastic ones.

Not applicable here, as it was the full cast bracket there since OEM install 20+yrs ago causing the break.

The issue with these elbows, in general, is the o-ring seal quality varies too much, and install techniques are very critical for success.

GT2000 - Hate when this happens, sorry, we've all been there. Good news for having a common engine is you should be able to find a front cover replacement on eBay, car-part.com, or find a spare engine to yank one from (yard, etc.).
H-body one for $35+35shpg Timing Cover 3.8L Fits 97-08 GRAND PRIX 219595 | eBay (just swap your water pump and oil filter adapter on with a $20 front cover gasket set)

Good luck.

Originally Posted by dezldave961

Not applicable here, as it was the full cast bracket there since OEM install 20+yrs ago causing the break.

The issue with these elbows, in general, is the o-ring seal quality varies too much, and install techniques are very critical for success.

Sure it's applicable. A plastic elbow wouldn't have broke the front cover.

Originally Posted by GTPpower

Sure it's applicable. A plastic elbow wouldn't have broke the front cover.

Have you seen evidence of an AL elbow do it? This was a fully-incorporated alternator bracket casting. Stress/strain applied to the elbows during removal are less, with less structural support to cause this issue.

Is the plastic weaker? Yes. Is hispre-99 bracket a straight-forward comparison path to support your dislike of the AL elbows? No.

Originally Posted by dezldave961

Have you seen evidence of an AL elbow do it? This was a fully-incorporated alternator bracket casting. Stress/strain applied to the elbows during removal are less, with less structural support to cause this issue.

Is the plastic weaker? Yes. Is hispre-99 bracket a straight-forward comparison path to support your dislike of the AL elbows? No.

The aluminum elbow cast into his bracket is going to see less electrolysis than these cheaply cast elbows we have now. The dorman elbows have been around less than 10 years, so you can't say this won't happen on the dorman elbows. Very good chance it will be worse than the original equipment.

Didn't say it won't happen, just saying it hasn't. That said, I've had a Double Rollmaster snap, a Felpro head bolt shear during install, and a variety of other issues. They all suck as much as the next, and at the time I posted each on ClubGP (R.I.P.) to ensure transparency. The same is happening here, and we can hypothesize about plausible issues decades down the road, but the soapbox for that stance doesn't exist, yet.

It will happen though. If any of these cars are still left on the road at that point.

Good add-ins, Bill.

My late-98 GTP (Daytona) still had the single-plastic bracket. It was changed when the 99+ W-body alternator changed.

The front cover only needs to have the 3 oil pan bolts removed... a 1/4" drive ratchet and/or GearWrench-type wrench are best for this.

You can see my prep of the front cover in the lame video I made last month.

Thanks for the help guys, took the PS and waterpump off yesterday. Gotta get puller for the crank, and source a cover. May just get that one on ebay dezldave found.

Bought that timing cover off ebay, got a balancer puller with the special bolts on amazon for 32 dollars, and after plenty of sweating and swearing, she's running again. So far no leaks, and even the eight year old battery put up with sitting for more then a month. Unfortuanatly when i had the alternator off it doesn't feel so good and squeks a bit, so that'll be next!

Don't plan on replacing it unless i know its bad, plus, i know the alternator was replace at least once on this car already.