1998 Lumina - keeping it running

[Nas Escobar]

Do you recommend swapping out the gaskets even if there is no overheating issues?

 

You don't have to do it, it''s just something that will happen when it happens. You'll know when you find that your coolant reservoir has no coolant and you see puddles under the car that don't come from the radiator or any other coolant line/hose.

 

The remark is mostly addressing the fact that this issue gets misdiagnosed as a bad head gasket more often than not. They have similar issues but not the same thing, although when it does happen, one bad gasket will ruin the other. In other words , if you don't fix your LIM when it is leaking, then you'll eventually ruin your HG as well.

 

BTW, in most cases, the car won't overheat, it will leak and mix the coolant with the oil.

 

You can also have air leaks from the LIM. I had that issue in my Cutlass but it had the DOHC 3.4. If the car runs good, I wouldn't worry too much about it. It's just something that you need to be aware of.

 

Does the peak long life coolant not have dexcool in it?

 

Dexcool is a trademark of GM. IDK if peak has the trademark licensed to them but I think only Prestone has the trademark licensed to them. Dexcool is NOT a chemical.

 

For the most part, generic coolant is green. Sometimes it can even be marketed as "extended life" or "safe to use wtih all coolants" aka you can "mix" it with the current Dexcool although that is never recommended to do. Dexcool is red. It's a characteristic of it. Just be careful and don't think all red coolant is Dexcool. Toyota also uses a red coolant and I think Honda uses an Orange coolant (or it might be Toyota too... never know).

 

I think you guys are WAY over-estimating the value of dumping the Dexcool.

 

Wasn't trying to come off that way. I just know a lot of people NEVER flush the coolant in a car every 3 or 5 years. People forget that all fluids have to be flushed at some point in time. This happened to me personally, but my Camaro came with the Dexcool and that was 12 year old (at the time) Dexcool. My radiator was so gunked up that the fluid went in red and cycled and came back brown. I had to change the radiator because it was going to be tedious flushing all that gunk out. Of course, all coolant does this. I remember a friend had a 96 Stratus with the 2.5 Mitsubishi engine and the coolant was doo doo brown. Just the way it happened because the car was abused and one of the neglected items was the coolant. Mind you this was the green stuff. I never thought the Dexcool had anything to do with the LIMG. That was a different issue. I simply think it's easier to have the green coolant in. Easier to find it, cheaper to buy it. Plus my Cutlass has the green stuff so it is kinda tedious to have both the red and green stuff. That's why I use green coolant in mine.

 

Intake gaskets have been improved. Both problems are now "old news", not current events.

 

I personally feel it's "current" events if it's the original one. I know we all make it seem as if it's a matter of "when" and not "if" but things do happen. If you can get 150k out of the originals, that's good, but still doesn't change the fact that something that's not supposed to fail did. It's almost like the head gasket. Those are meant to last the lifetime of the engine and most usually do. It's more of a warning than anything else, although we might be approaching the time where 85% of the cars have the metal gaskets and not the nylon ones.... HOWEVER I also see a lot of cars get sent to the junkyard for bad LIMG's so this issue is just misunderstood imo.

[Schurkey]

crucify me if you must, but I've gotten the cheap <$2 Bar's Leak tubes to seal mystery coolant leaks before(owner didn't want to pull apart the engine to replace a gasket or two), .

GM shoves a tablet of stop-leak into the cooling system of many if not all engines. I know that stop leak pellets were standard equipment on the terrible Cadillac 4.1 aluminum nightmare.

 

Wouldn't surprise me to discover that GM puts a pellet into EVERY engine and short-block they build.

 

I've used chemical sealers (not the pellets) on a couple of engines. One time, (Olds 455) the sealer worked well, and the other time (Flathead Ford V-8) it didn't.

[RobertISaar]

i've never seen/used the legit GM tablets, but they at least appear to not leave a randomly dissolving crust throughout the cooling system. either that or every cooling system I've had to clean out after someone doing that really, REALLY overdid it and used far too much of the various versions out there.