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Overheating and coolant leaking at corner of the block & manifold

K

kidkev

New member
I have a Basic 2005 Grand Prix with 161000 for my daughter. Of course she calls me yesterday to tell me the car is over heating. I take it for a drive down the road and the car starts to over heat after a couple of miles. It dosen't get in the red but close to it. As I turn around and come home I open the hood and notice steam coming from the passengers side corner of where the block and the back manifold meet and coolant coming out.

Don't know much about cars. Any ideas & advise. It would be much appreciated. thank you
 


my bet is the coolant elbow blow out.

you need to take the alt off, and then the alt bracket to replace the 2 elbows. they sell metal ones now at all the local parts stores now pretty much.

clean all 4 holes real good, oil the new o rings on the elbows and slide them in and bolt the alt bracket back on. pretty easy to do.
 
Thanks Man. I have seen alot of info on coolant elbows on here. Sound better than a blown head gasket.
 
You'd have to cook these motors pretty damn long for a headgasket to pop or be making some serious horsepower.

Coolant elbows and intake gaskets are always the prime suspects.
 
I don't know much about cars but I do know the temperature never go in the red. But when I seen the steam and the coolant coming from the motor block and the manifold/valve cover (or whatever you call it). My heart sank. Thanks for the hope.
 


I would think either coolant elbow, o-ring where the heater hose connectors attach to the alternator bracket, or a pinhole in a heater hose that is shooting onto the manifold.
 
Looks like its an intake gasket. Thanks to all. Mechanic says around $450....says after it is fixed, it will take care of it and will not happen again. Said he would order a more advanced gasket, it would cost a little more but be worth it (?). Told me not to sell it because of this. He said to continue to let my 21yr old daughter make the hour drive to college in it like before. Sound about right?
 
He probably means the metal LIM gaskets or he should use those and not the plastic ones. If its overheating I wouldn't drive it and possibly hurt the car, but thats just me. I would do like Bill is saying check the elbows for leakage because you could replace them yourself and save some $$$.

Sent from the Milky Way
 
you can change them yourself for around 100 bucks in parts, and 3 hours of your time. theres really nothing to it, some plugs on wires, they can only go back to one place. some bolts some coolant, a oil change. theres aeven a vid that covers the job on a supercharged engine, same deal pretty much for a n/a engine.

http://www.grandprixforums.net/threads/46931-How-to-Mod-a-LIM do this, or print it out and ask your mechanic to do it. this will kep the engine from ever hydro locking or eating coolant again.

http://www.grandprixforums.net/threads/60667-97-03-NA-L36-UIM-Failure and the upper intake failures and how to fix it.
 


my main goal in life is not give my money away to a shop. i do as much of my own work as humanly possible. 3 hours of time? or the 350 extra to the shop, no brainer in my book.

you cant do it in 33 minutes really, its time condensed, ( theres members here who can do it in less then 2 hours. eyes closed too lol ) but covers all the important stuff. this vid also changes the lifters, you stop when the lower intake is off. then put it back together. no need for you to change your lifters.

 
Like Scott mentions, the work itself isn't hard. I'd plan for a day and be happy spending half on it, first time out. Overall though there's some tips and tricks we can add to what you already see in the info Scott provided.
 
I agree do it yourself, it may be intimidating when you first look at it but when you dive into it you'll find its pretty easy and straight forward. Just take a lot of of pictures so you can refer back to them if you need them for reassembly.
 
Update. Me and a buddy (who is a shadetree mechanic) went ahead and did it. Still watched all the video and stuff you guys sent. I really appreciate it!! Daughter just started driving it past weekend. She calls me today to tell me she has trouble cranking the car & the temp gauge is not working. Came home to crank the car and yes the car strugled to start up and put out a little smoke. Plus the car is louder around the exhaust. More of a grrr sound. Would wait and the motor would settle and seem more confortable.

A second start and the car started just fine. Waited about 30 minutes to restart, much of the same, the car struggled to start but did with a little smoke then went away. And would settle after a minute. The second start was fine with less smoke & the third start was fine.

Sounds kinda like the choke or extra fuel. Not sure
 


could be a bad fuel pressure regulator, if that year has one. or maybe a vac line broke after you did the lim job/during?

or a dirty TB, but i dont think that would cause a puff of smoke.

what color was the smoke? and did you by chance smell it? it smell like burnt oil, or sweet like coolant?
 
What is a TB? The smoke really does not smell. It's just a puff. I'll try to get a smell. I park it on kind of a steep hill, let it set & it started fine. Thanks
 
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