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Coolant on top of engine

T

thewaitinggame

New member
I have been smelling burning coolant lately when my heat is on and when you go by the hood of my car. I know I have a leak somewhere and now that its a little warmer I went outside to try to find where its coming from. It looks a little wet on the passenger side of the engine and I did come across some sitting on top the engine behind the from valve cover. I'm going to post some pictures for the exact location. I have the area circled in red where the coolant is sitting. Does anyone know what would be causing coolant to leak here and what the possible fix would be? I have a 2003 3800 GP. Hopefully this attached pictures are good enough to see.

This is on a 2003 3800 GP.
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yea your gonna want the aluminum lim gaskets an upper gasket a tb gasket injector orings and coolant elbows
Its not that bad of a fix specialy on a n/a 3.8
 
I did this job on my last GT. I would suggest buying a new Dorman upper intake plenum while you're at it. The OEM one has a tendency to melt around the EGR inlet. If I remember right it was about $135 at Autozone. It has a fix for that problem so you don't fill your intake with coolant like mine did. PM me if you have any questions.

BTW, the Dorman plenum comes with all the gaskets you need except the lim one. Get that from GM.
 


So basically I should get an aluminum lower intake gasket(or from GM?), the Dorman upper, a throttle body gasket, fuel injector o-rings and coolant elbows? Sorry to re-post whats being said but I want to get my list of suggested parts together and go buy them this week. I watched the video and doesnt look to bad of a job. Basically looks like I follow what he does til he takes off the old gasket and don't go further where he takes off the valve covers. Thanks for the replies again too
 
The GM LIM gasket is the aluminum one. The Dorman upper plenum comes with the plenum gasket, injector o-ring gaskets and throttle body gasket. You will also want to pick up the coolant elbows that go into the LIM from the alternator/tensioner bracket. They don't usually come out in one piece. You will need fresh coolant and it's good practice to change the oil and filter after a job like this.
 
yea forgot that your ganna wanna drain the oil do your tear down and id pour a quart or 2 of cheap oil through to rinse out any coolant

Some opt to do the valve cover gaskest since they already have it taken down that far

Clean all parts and gasket surfaces very well I used a couple engine cleaning brushes on a drill and synthetic steel wool pads along with a gasket scraper

And superglue is reat to have handy incase you break a vacuum line trust me
 
Get the Upper Intake Manifold from here.

GM Intake Manifold Kit - iNeedParts.com

Its only 89 bucks and has a metal sleeve around the melting prone area and a smaller stovepipe, so there is a space between the mani and the stovepipe. No more melting.

The Dorman intake is 135 bucks and it also melts and is no better than the GM manifold, from what Ive read.
 
That one looks just like the Dorman one I used. The two small aluminum tubes are smaller diameter to put a space between the plastic and the hot tube going into it. One of the two is the correct size for your engine. The old one doesn't come out easy and the new one doesn't go in easy either. I ended up using sandpaper to take the sharp edge off and then a rubber mallet to tap it into the LIM. Great price on that kit though. I would go that way just to save some green.
 


Thanks for more replies, SuperSport I am interested in spending less for a good part so I will definately look into getting that one. And all the tips for doing this job is appreciated. I wouldn't have known to do some of this like change oil too after im done.
 
Just did this yesterday and took about 8 hours, including the 1 3/4 hrs running around trying to find a o-ring for the lower fuel injectors. Nobody had them but one auto store about 1/2 hr from my house. One got ruined because we had to take the rail off 3 times because we forgot to put on 2 of the brackets. The one thing I forgot was to take out the old EGR valve and put the new one in. I remember checking the original one and looked fine still. I think with all the running around I had to do we were in a hurry to put it all back together and forgot to do that. Hopefully as long as mine looked fine it wont matter too much. Thanks for all the help and the link to the video, it made the job easier. Hope I never have to do it again.
 
I did just order the dorman from rock auto, it was $80. I figured they both parts have good reviews and I needed some other things from rock. I was going back and forth between the 2 but out of ease did one order from rock. With 140,000 on my car now and the original lim and uim's lasted up til now, the better gasket I now have should last the life of my car.
 


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