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I've done a bit of looking around, but nothing's been discussed that has to do with the problem I'm having, so I'll get right to it.
'98 Sunfire GT 2.4l, engine's been rebuilt once, ~250k km (oooooh Canadians!).
Last weekend, I was helping a friend move. The car got downtown just fine. When we left to go to his new place (probably about an hour in between arriving and leaving, definitely in the negative teens celsius), the car was shuddering. Stopped at a coffee shop, let it run for a bit with no change. Stopped the car, let it sit for 5, fired it up again and she ran smooth for the rest of the night. As I got back home, my coolant light popped on.
Next day, light's still on, so I figure I'll run down to Tim Horton's for a morning coffee and fill up the tank when I get back. About 3/4 of the way there (short drive, about 2-3 minutes depending on lights), the air in the car went cold, and my gauge started climbing high. I gunned it the last few hundred meters, and shut her off in the parking lot. Popped the hood, opened the reservoir cap, and the overflow was smoking and empty. Had my sister bring me a 30% mix, filled it up, everything was fine until I got back to the house. As I pulled into the driveway, the light came on again. I checked the coolant level, and it had dropped about half.
All this happened with no visible coolant on the ground. I've talked to a few people - one suggested that my head gasket may be gone, or that there might be a crack in the block which is burning off the coolant - but nothing seems definitive. She wasn't smoking, no notable smells either, and no apparent leaks.
Just wondering if there's anything that I can pick up on the way home to check it out with, seeing as I'm on quite a tight budget, and anything that the garage quotes me over a certain number will have me heading to a dealer for a new car (there are a few other things that need to be fixed, but this is the most urgent at the moment).
Any thoughts/ideas/help would be greatly appreciated!
So this diagnosis, fortunately, can be determined by one test to see if it's one or the other.
What you need to buy, or borrow, is a coolant pressure pump. What you do is pump up the pressure to be higher than stock radiator cap pressure by a few psi (don't go nuts) and then check for
a) a leak---which, under this extra pressure, should start gushing out somewhere. You may need to crawl under the car (yuck).
No leak visible anywhere?
Okay, then, with the coolant still under pressure, we remove each spark plug, one at a time, and look for green (or whatever color you have) coolant on the tips of the plug. See any? Good---I mean---BAD. You have a leaking head gasket or cracked head or cracked cylinder wall.
Also be sure to check inside the hole with a flashlight if you can get in there at all, and look for signs of coolant on top of the piston (hard to do this without a special snake light).
Good luck with it. If you have a bad head gasket, don't feel bad about driving with no coolant--it probably has been going on for some time.
thanks for your help in advance
BruceinGeorgia
Whatever you do, don't overheat that Saab engine. Those cylinder heads bend easily. Head gaskets are a big problem on a 900, especially a turbo.
You should also check out the fan motor itself.
Disconnect the fan motor from the harness, and check whether there is voltage on the harness with a voltmeter. If no voltage, you problem is 'upstream' of that harness. If there is power at the harness, then likely the fan motor is bad. You should be able to apply 12 volts directly to the fan motor to check it out.
While I'm curious about those signs in general, I'm also wondering if they're still valid for the vehicle in question: blown head gasket (and consequently exhaust fumes are bubbling the coolant overflow), no leakage from the water pump, and only the top radiator hose seems to get warm.
The new radiator cap only turns tight once; the old one said to align arrows with cooling tube(turned twice, one pushed down hard).
Any suggestions on correct burping procedure?
White smoke comes out the exhaust; mechanic says this means blown head gasket.
I thought that with a blown head gasket, the coolant went into the oil(this is not happening).
With the new radiator, etc.,, I am not losing any noticable amount from the overflow or radiator. If it was the head gasket, wouldnt I be losing coolant?
The manual says to fill radiator to neck of radiator. I am wondering if filling to the top(by myself and mechanics, etc.) is causing air problems.
Vehicle is 1997 Pontiac Trans Sport.
I definitely got ripped off(cracked plastic radiator end) from seller.
But I have met many more wonderful people, including those on this forum.
99% of people are good.
Thank you,
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
You could have a defective relay which is burnt relay points, arc welded together. Without having electrical schematics and knowing it's draining the battery down, pull that relay while parked.
Do you think it could be a bad waterpump or therm? there is no white smoke or water in the oil. The mechanic said I needed to change my clutch for the fan, he was able to stop it with his hand.
Sometimes I smell a coolant smell from the engine area but not the exhaust.
Sometimes ill have to top off the radiator, there is no leaks at all though.
Any help would be awesome, the mechanic pressure tested it and he said was fine. faulty pump?
Thanks for the help!
This sure could be causing overheating. While at idle or driving slowly, the bad clutch is not turning the fan, which could cause overheating. When driving faster, you are getting adequate air flow thru the radiator, and are not overheating. This may be why you overheat sometimes and sometimes not.
A way to test for a bad clutch - Get the car hot, warmed up. Idle the car, open the hood, have someone turn the ignition off. The fan should stop turning very quickly. Just a few spins, then stop. This indicated the clutch is working, meaning when hot it has high friction and will make the fan spin. If the fan continues to spin, it's broken - when hot it has no friction to turn the fan.
If you have to add coolant, there is only two reasons:
-You have a leak
-You have a bad head gasket and it is either being pulled into the pistons and burned out the exhaust or pulled into the oil system and the crankcase has coolant mixed with the oil.
That's not good, by the way.
probably not your problem.
Think we've got this covered now, between the two of us working on it?
What's your compression readings straight across on both sides?
If a valve is bad and not sealing, or the rings on the piston are bad, or the head gasket is leaking, then the cylinder pressure will be lower than it is supposed to be.
So, if your left cylinder bank, for instance, reads 150, 155, 145, 150, that's healthy. But if the right bank reads 150 90 90 150, then you almost certainly have a break in the head gasket between those two cylinders.
The reason I say "sometimes" is because head gaskets can break or deform in different places on the head. The break or defect doesn't ALWAYS lead to low compression, or to water in the oil. Sometimes you can get exhaust gases in the coolant, for instance.
In that latter case, you can chemically test your coolant for the presence of combustion gases.
Tracking down a head gasket leak is a science. Taking off the heads to see if there is a leak is like sawing off the top of your head to see if there's a tumor. There are more preliminary methods.