Tru2Chevy Posted November 5, 2004 Report Share Posted November 5, 2004 Info: '91 Lumina, 3.1, 125c, 178,xxx miles. Only mod is a hacked airbox with stock filter. Ok, so my car has not been in the best of moods lately. About three weeks ago I replaced the waterpump, belt, and tensioner. Shortly afterwards, I discovered that the car is still not holding coolant when it started blowing steam out of the front of the radiator while I was sitting in traffic (the car wasn't overheating, just realeasing some built up pressure through pinholes in the rad.). Bars Leaks didn't fix the leak, and made the coolant look like frappuchino. (Oil is not contaminated, and car wasn't showing any other signs of head gasket trouble, BTW). The other day, I fill the radiator and overflow tank with water, and drive normally for about 15 minutes around town. When I get to my friends house, we notice that the car is dumping "frappuchino" all over his driveway, and it's coming from the front/right side of the engine (rear passanger side of the engine bay). I can't tell exactly where the leak is, but I'm thinking that it's a freeze plug. This morning, on my 5 min. drive to work, the car stalls as soon as I try to accelerate away from a stop light. Once I get the car restarted and moving it will accelerate fine, it just wants to stall everytime I pull away from a stop. The only way around this is to hold the brake before leaving the light and reving the motor up like I was about to launch at the track. My dad and I were talking last night, and we are gonna put the car up on a lift tomorrow to check for the coolant leak, and we will also test the TPS for proper voltage and the EGR for proper function. Is there anything else that anyone thinks we should look for? Thanks for the help! - Justin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Regal_GS_1989 Posted November 5, 2004 Report Share Posted November 5, 2004 Your not gonna wanna hear this but it has got to be one of two things. 1. Severely eroded head gaskets 2. Craked head(s) If there was coolant being pushed out of the rad, you gotta pull your heads and check the gaskets and heads for any cracks. I cracked a set of heads on my 3.1 Regal GS. It ended up pushing all of the coolant out through the overflow. When i got the heads off, the gaskets were almost perfect. But you have to check the little space between the valves and also around the spark plug hole (u should use a magnifying glass) to see if there are any small cracks. If the heads are carboned up bad, you may also have to gently scrape away any carbon to check for cracks. BTW, there was no oil in the coolant of my car, there was only a small amount of coolant in the oil wich i only saw after changing my oil. Just a heads up, removing heads on a 3.1 are a majorPITA Good Luck! 8) I've been there too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vegaslumina Posted November 7, 2004 Report Share Posted November 7, 2004 I'm voting for a cracked head also, had the same symptoms as you, but on a different car. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tru2Chevy Posted November 8, 2004 Author Report Share Posted November 8, 2004 Looks like the problem was much less severe than I thought. I took the car to my dad's shop on Saturday and threw it up on a lift right after filling the rad. with water. I found a leak in one of the heater core lines at one of the brackets where it is secured just underneath the overflow tank. I cut away part of the metal pipe, replaced it with 2' of heater hose, topped off the coolant, bled the system, and she's running perfect. I guess the computer was freaking out because of the constant draining of the coolant. We checked the TPS, and voltage is normal. - Justin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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