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ajoliver2010

New member
Hello. 97 SE..147k. I took her to the gas station to fill up and then headed home. As soon as I get in the driveway I smell something burning so I immediately turned her off and inspected. Found nothing. About an hour later..It's time to go to work. I jumped in the car and turned her over. It cranked twice and completely shut off!! So I popped the hood...Coolant reservoir is full...rad is empty....And I can literally squeeze the life out of the upper and lower hoses and hear the air blowing through 😞. There's no coolant anywhere on the ground, but I see a small coolant pool in the back of the intake manifold. Someone please tell me I can fix her up and this isn't a case of hydrolock. Thank you.
 


Pull the spark plugs, see if coolant pours out.

Check the oil level too, it might be higher because coolant is in the crankcase now. It may even look like a milkshake.
 
Most likely failure is the intake gaskets are gone and the EGR stove pipe could have finally melted through the upper intake and flooded the motor with coolant.

Worst case is a head gasket but you'd likely have seen it smoking pretty bad just prior to complete failure.
 
Nope no smoke at all..Damn. I had the chance to fix something a year ago I didn't do it. I was nervous. I'm a diy type of guy. I have never taken this car to mechanic for the 7 years I've purchased it. I can't give up on her. 😊
 


if the lower manifold where you got them rags stuffed in was soaking wet. you need to fix the egr stove pipe in the upper black plastic manifold, or replace it.

as long as your this deep you should change the lim gaskets too. they came with plastic crap and they new metal gasket is much better.

some reading for ya http://www.grandprixforums.net/threads/60667-97-03-NA-L36-UIM-Failure

seal them two little holes off and it cant leak coolant like that ever again on you. http://www.grandprixforums.net/threads/46931-How-to-Mod-a-LIM

if you hydro locked it lets hope you didnt keep trying to crank it, that can kill a rod bearing for ya.

if you get any or already have coolant in the oil, dump a qt down the valley to wash the coolant out, then drain it and change the oil filter after your done with the gaskets, run it for a few minutes, then change the oil and filter again.
 
Small update: Its been very cold in Jersey so I'm taking my time with everything. I've drained the oil yesterday...Doesn't look milky to me at all. I also took the spark plugs out as well. Cylinder #6 had some coolant pressure as I took the plug out. Since the car has been sitting for a week now the oil filter is stuck to the point that the oil filter wrench is crushing it 😲😨. I'm going to try to manually turn the engine over with a socket before doing anything else. Had to replace vaacum line on Schrader valve as well.
 
if you put your filter wrench all the way to the top of the filter, right under housing, that is the strongest part, well the only part that wont crush on you. so grab it up top there. make sure your turning it the right way too.
 
Lefty, loosey. righty, tightey. Filter is upside down though, so clockwise as you look at it through the wheel well. Pull towards you on the right side of filter.
 
loose would be pulled to the firewall. tight to the bumper. only way to grab it with a wrench is via the wheel well. at least on my car thats how i get to it.
 




your rather close, im in hackensack. if you wanted i could tune the egr out and you can just toss it in the trash. install two block off plates.
 
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