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please help, car wont start

First, according to your pics, this is an NA motor. Pull the plugs, likely you'll have water run out of the cylinders.
Secondly, it sounds like your starter ground a flat spot or your starter is now bad as well. have it checked/tested and look at the flex plate when you are there. Look for the teeth of the gear to be ground off. It's not overly common, but heck..things happen.

My first guess is your UIM burst and allowed coolant into the intake, which burned and made the car run badly. Your bad radiator cap was what made the hose flatten, along with how quickly a large amount of coolant pushed into the engine.

Take a look at the thread about L36 Failures.
 


well i towed it to the shop. paid 150$ for the starter, he said it was broken trying to start it up.

he pulled all spark plugs and they had water on them, so its probably the head gasket blown bad into the cylinder.

the thing is.

the motor is locked and wont move.

he said to repair the gasket will take a week and a half and will cost me around 800$ +-

sucks i need get from Portland to Seattle.

just letting you know that was the problem if it happens to someone else.
if you think the price is ok please comment.
if you think its a waste of money please advise me.

consider its a
grand Prix 98 gt 216k
has a hitch, new water pump new hids/headlights. dvd stereo, back camera. after market stereo, sub.


tnx.
 
I guess you didnt read many of these comments to your problem.

The likelyhood of you blowing a headgasket are very slim. And the likeyhood of that mechanic's diagnosis be wrong about the headgasket is high. And a week and a half to do a headgasket job is just crazy talk.

Read the thread bill talked about, its prolly the UIM/LIM gaskets that went. They always go bad on these engine and cause water/coolant to get dumped into the motor.
 
Upper intake manifold/lower intake mainfold. Parts are pretty cheap and no he will not have to. If you have the tools and some time you can do all of the work yourself. Check out Rockauto.com for the parts.
 
Tnx. So one of these problems caused my engine hydro lock??
btw. Before I brought my car to the shop I checked the dipstick and it didn't have coolant in it.

But yestarday when he tried to show me its a head gasket it DID have mile on oil.

And he pulled the spark plugs to show me its wet.

How much should I expect to pay for such thing?
Should I tell him that it might be only uim/lim?
 


As stated in many many posts, head gasket failure on these motors is rare, it can still happen, but rare. Lim gaskets fail all of the time, right now mine need changed. I am sure Bill will chime in soon. I would tell your mechanic to check the LIM and UIM before he takes off the heads.
 


The motor seized from idle. I wasn't driving. It won't work anymore? Plz let me know so I'll stop the repair guy from fixing my car.
 
im sorry i don't know so much about engines. but if it seized does it mean it wont work for long or wont work at all?

this car is a 1998 grand Prix. to buy an engine will cost me more than a car. the only reason im trying to fix the gaskets is because i put so much money in this car. i have so many things installed in it.

what would be a fair solution to do with this car???

car not running. hydrolock head gsket or lim. at the shop. he said it could cost me somewhere from 500 to 1000 to fix the gaskets. the thing is even after pulling the plugs the motor didnt move.

(he said it did before i came there but he turned it off).

hes gonna start working on my car monday. he has it there already.
what should i do?
 
joe0813 said:
If your motor seized why would you fix it.... its junk
Click to expand...

They don't know if its seized, did you read this thread?

Clearly only a select few have read this thread and understand what likely happened.

He said it started running funny and then while he had it stopped at idle the motor just died. You would hear some sweet ass noises coming from the bottem end if the motor seized. Most of us think the motor is hydrolocked from coolant dumping into the motor and nor allowing the starter to turn it over.

Thats why we told him to pull all the plugs and check to see if any coolant comes pouring out.
 


Actually he said "he pulled all spark plugs and they had water on them," and after that he mentioned that "the motor is locked and wont move". They assumed that after the plugs were out, the engine would still not turn over, meaning it is truly locked, not hydro locked. As long as it was in that order, and the starter is not able to crank the engine, its locked. I'd try it by hand with the plugs out next, unless I knew for sure the starter was really struggling to turn it over, but couldn't. We're lacking details...
 
raverockstar said:
Tnx. So one of these problems caused my engine hydro lock??
btw. Before I brought my car to the shop I checked the dipstick and it didn't have coolant in it.

But yestarday when he tried to show me its a head gasket it DID have mile on oil.

And he pulled the spark plugs to show me its wet.

How much should I expect to pay for such thing?
Should I tell him that it might be only uim/lim?
Click to expand...


he said right there his motor is hydro locked. which means bye bye motor
 
02NavyBlue said:
Actually he said "he pulled all spark plugs and they had water on them," and after that he mentioned that "the motor is locked and wont move". They assumed that after the plugs were out, the engine would still not turn over, meaning it is truly locked, not hydro locked. As long as it was in that order, and the starter is not able to crank the engine, its locked. I'd try it by hand with the plugs out next, unless I knew for sure the starter was really struggling to turn it over, but couldn't. We're lacking details...
Click to expand...

Ok more details. The car shop said he didnt pull all the plugs out. Only the 3 front.
He said he will start working on it Monday.

The starter broke to pieces he said and he charged me 150 to instal a new one.
He said after he changed the starter the car turned on but had a lot of white smoke and was rough so he turned it off again. And said that it doesn't turn on again.

And only when I came to the shop he pulled the 3 front plugs out to show me its dripping and rusty. He tried to move the engine but it didn't move much.
He said he will check the intake. On Monday.

Car has 200k on it.
Car was always smooth feels like new.

It stated to shake 2 mins before parking and after I tuned it off it didn't start.

Some coolant was missing in the rad.
I added some water.

I changed oil 2 days before.
When ever I check it was never milky. But after I came to the shop it was milky.

Car thermostat was never over hitting. Was on the quarter.

If you need more info let me know.
I need to make a decision before Monday. When he fix the car.
If the engine will die it makes no sense to pay for the gasket.

You guys very helful and I apriciate your help.
 
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