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Car wont start

S

smokinwrench

New member
I just bought a 1998 Grand Prix 3.8 NA, it has 177,000 miles. Guy I bought it from said he shut it off to fill with gas and went to restart it and it wouldn't start. He had a friend from that town come help him. That friend said that station sold crappy gas so they went and put 5 gallons of gas from another station in it and a couple bottles of heet and injector cleaner. He said they cranked it over and it let out a puff of white smoke. He took it to a mechanic friend of his and he was told it had a blown head gasket.

I just got it home late tonight and looked at it a little. No foam on oil fill cap. Oil on dip stick is clean and not over full. Intake gaskets are leaking externally. Engine turns over fine and acts like its trying to fire on a couple cylinders. I did give it a sniff of ether and it didn't fire, I'm guessing plugs are fouled now. I've heard stories about 3.8 intake gaskets but never had any experience with them. I've been a diesel mechanic for 20 years so I know my way around engines. Just looking for help from guys that have had this problem, I'm wanting to keep this car total low budget for a work car.
 


Pull the intake off and the throttle body. Is everything soaked around the EGR tube in the intake? If so.. do the UIM and or plug the holes. (Search on my name and "Eas y" without the space for L36 failure info) You might have wet plugs and not yet have hydrolocked, which would be good. This could also be as simple as a crank sensor. Either way.. when you have the TB off, give it a nice cleaning and the car will run better once it does fire up.
 
I just pulled off the intake and TB, everything is soaked. It's an oily nasty antifreeze slime. I'm surprised how much carbon is in the intake, I'm guessing 1/16 buildup in entire thing. I'm looking up L36 failure now. Oh you were correct on TB it's the dirtiest one I've ever seen.
 
I just looked up your thread on L36 failure. Mine looks exactly the same. I'm a little sketchy on plugging the holes.

Do I remove UIM, drill,tap and plug the 2 smaller holes in the LIM? Do I leave the big hole alone? I'm all about cheap until this car is proven. I'll even reuse the gaskets if they don't rip or break.
 
you'll want to change the lower intake gaskets, they are plastic, the metal upgraded gaskets are much better. so take the lim off.

if you block the two cooling ports in the lim, you'll never have to worry about this happening again.
 
Thank you BillBoost37, mine was exactly like the one in your demonstration. I tapped and plugged the holes and just got back from a 30 mile test drive.
 


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