Possible Blown Head Gasket
 

Alright, to start things off, I feel stupid for not checking the radiator cap before I bought the car and I feel even more stupid that every time i post on here its always a problem that I need help on.
With that said, a friend of mine came over the other day so he can help me with my previous problem of a low idle, but as we were about to go into it he decided to just check coolant and radiator cap, and what we found was that were was oil somehow getting into the coolant reservoir and also in the radiator hosing as well. We flushed out the the reservoir and the lower radiator hose and refilled it with new prediluted coolant and burped it 3 times. Not sure if this is related to my low idle problem (I have no cleaned out my IAC yet as I was planning to), but I have no power loss, no white smoke, and my car is running just fine. I guess this could be early signs/symptoms that my head gasket is blown. With my very little experience on cars, idk if i can do such a job as replacing the head gasket if it is blown nor do I have the funds to have this done at a shop. I do not want to give up on this car and I plan to still keep it. I have to go to work today, and I will check the coolant reservoir again tomorrow morning to see if there is any oil that got in there or in the radiator again. I am originally of swapping out my engine to a 3.4 v6 since that seems more in my budget range and the easiest swap to do (I really want to do a LS1 or a 3.8 v6 from the Buick Grand Nationale), but I have no idea where to buy the engine for cheap and hopefully its reliable and I dont have to go through this again.

Once again, I am sorry for always posting my problems on these forums.

Re: Possible Blown Head Gasket
 

You mention oil in the radiator , so the very next things you checked were the engine oil and transmission fluid , right ?

If the engine oil is milky white then yea , you oil and coolant are mixing and a headgasket is one possible cause . If the transmission fluid looks bad then the transmission fluid cooler in the radiator is leaking . Transmission fluid in the radiator can look alot like oil if your not used to telling the difference . A coolant system pressure test will tell you whether there is a breach in the headgaskets or elsewhere and a cylender compression check wouldn't hurt , either ......

Re: Possible Blown Head Gasket
 

I would first get used to diagnosing and maintaining the 2.8 before you attempt a swap to a different engine. Even between the 2.8 and 3.1 swap there's slight differences - more so with the 3.4. Also, with the age of these engines it's unlikely that you can still find a good condition ready-to-go engine anyways.

Re: Possible Blown Head Gasket
 

:yup: I started working on my Firebird a little over 2 years ago. I had grand plans to swap my 3.1 for a 3.4 and install a 6 speed manual. No more. It always takes much longer to do a job than you think it should, parts (even new parts) don't always fit well & require mods., bolts break, sometimes I break things while trying to fix other things, I'm not as fast as experienced mechanics (and never will be), I've had to buy more tools, and I've found that parts can get to be very expensive. Folks on this forum have been a godsend, but I would never have gotten some things repaired if I did not have a couple of mechanic friends.

I would never attempt to swap an engine without help from a friend(s) who know how to do it. If I do try a swap, I'm going to assume the car will not be repaired for at least several weeks (more likely months).

I'm not trying to discourage you. I'm proud of all the fixing I've done on my bird and my becoming a much better mechanic. It is a much better car and more fun to drive. Just start out slow doing the simple stuff. Unless you've got some experienced help, I would not consider changing a head gasket or swapping an engine even close to being "the simple stuff."

Re: Possible Blown Head Gasket
 

If youve never swaped a engine before and need the car to run, id put in a 2.8L or a 3.1L, what ever you can find. A GN engine or ls1 swap is not for the beginner if you need the car in a timly fashon. Just my 2 cents though.

Re: Possible Blown Head Gasket
 

Aero - you need to start with the basics - check all the fluid levels first (high, low, empty?) It's definitely possible that the radiator transmission cooler tank cracked and leaked into the radiator. The head gasket is not leaking until you verify that it is leaking. You may not even have a problem beyond dirty coolant. Here's some tips: Don't jump to conclusions. Break the problems into smaller jobs. Don't try to fix everything at once. Work on one problem until it is 100% complete before starting the next job. I have a brother that tries to fix everything at one time and all he did was spend a lot of money and in the end got a yard full of uncompleted projects :P Keep everything organized - Don't stop till you're done.

A professional approaches a job like this:

Verify the problem. Diagnose the problem. Estimate time/cost. Repair the problem. Verify completed repair.

So, right now you have 2 issues.

1) Idle Issue
2) Coolant Issue

Pick one and we'll start there first.

Re: Possible Blown Head Gasket
 

Blown head gaskets have 2 major issues:

1. Coolant getting into the cylinders and then into the oil pan, noticed with white steam coming out of the exhaust
2. Compression loss (between cylinders has been my problem between 3 and 5)

Check the transmission fluid on the stick... Could be a pink milkshake or low on fluid (anyone know the trans fluid pressure in the cooler circuit? If it's more than 16 PSI, don't worry about the milkshake). In which case, the engine is the least of your worries.

As for the low idle, there is a round thing with 4 wires going to it on the throttle body. Take it out and make sure it's free of carbon on the tip and the bore inside the throttle body is also clean. Then disconnect the battery and reconnect it after a few seconds to reset it. Other than that, you would need to post up how low the idle is and whether or not it's steady.

Re: Possible Blown Head Gasket
 

:) A point to remember ;

A breach in the cooler can let the two fluids exchange , and the reason is that while the car is running , yes the transmission pressure will be greater than the radiator pressure , especially during the first few moments of running while the coolant has yet to come up to temperature (and pressure) , and so the transmission fluid leaks into the coolant ....... Now , you shut off the hot engine and the transmission pressure goes away , but the radiator pressure does not instantly drop with the stoppage of the engine . Thus the antifreeze is forced into the transmission , with the resultant pink milkshake ( Great description BTW , it really does look like a pink milkshake :nod: )

This is why I asked the OP to check both his engine oil and transmission fluid and report back ....

Re: Possible Blown Head Gasket
 

Well I asked my friend who is way more experienced in the field of mechanics and he diagnosed it as a blown head gasket and checked the mixture of fluids that was in my coolant reservoir and my radiator hose. He smelled and touched it, and i asked him about whether or not if the fluids could be transmission fluid, and he said no because if it was it would smell horrible. I usually go and trust my friend since he has grown up with this kind of stuff.
As for my idle, when i am in "Park" my idle is a steady 900-1000 but once i shift it to the normal drive (i have an automatic) my idle is around a close 500 to 700. The engine sounds a bit rough (just my me listening, but I could be wrong).
I plan to fix coolant problem first since i figured it was the more serious problem, but since cleaning the IAC is easier, im probably going to end up trying that first and see if that fixes my idle.

Re: Possible Blown Head Gasket
 

Oh I forgot to add, that since we werent 100% sure what it was, I decided to drive my car a bit to see if more oil would get into my coolant reservoir and radiator hose. Surely enough there was an increase of oil in the reservoir tank after a couple drives, but not an extreme amount. We also cleaned the reservoir tank by flushing it our with water.
Honestly though, even if the problem turns out to be my head gasket is blown, yea im a lil bummed out and depressed, but I am also a little excited to actually dive deeper into the engine and learn more about it.

Re: Possible Blown Head Gasket
 

Update as of today, did a compression test and found out cylinders 3/5 there was a leak and after reading the directions on how to diagnose my outcome, turns out that my problem is the head gasket.

Re: Possible Blown Head Gasket
 

When you get the head off, have it checked at a machine shop for cracks and the deck surface (gasket side) for straightness. Do both head gaskets at the same time. Might as well, since you need to tear everything down to get the one head off anyways and the second gasket isn't much more.

Re: Possible Blown Head Gasket
 

thanks for the heads up! lol i probably would've just put in the new one.
But ya i plan to do it in 2 weeks due to school/work and I am setting aside a couple days to just work on this project. Hopefully at the end of it all, my car will be running like new, then I can work on other stuff i want to do with the car.

Re: Possible Blown Head Gasket
 

Well, there has to be a reason for oil in the coolant...

If you can afford the time to do it, definitely either take the head to the machine shop and have it checked or soak it in something similar to Purple Power for a day or so to get it squeaky clean (and get the carbon off so you can check the chambers for cracks).

And I also had issues on my 3.1 between 3 and 5. I kept losing compression. Also, I know it's not the same engine and had an aluminum head, but I worked on a Sunfire that had severe overheating issues, that had a 2.2 L4. Once the head was clean, we found at least 2 cracks in each chamber that were probably leaking. The head was replaced, needless to say.

Re: Possible Blown Head Gasket
 

Alright, well Im on a budget so Ill also be asking my friend who knows more about cars than me as to what are my options but ya thanks again for the advice I will definitely be referring back to this.

Re: Possible Blown Head Gasket
 

Oh ya also, like I said, I dont see much wrong with my car besides the low idle and the oil in my coolant reservoir. I am not overheating, no power loss, or smoke anywhere.
But since we already diagnosed the problem (hopefully this is truly it), its better to get to the problem now than later before it gets worse

Re: Possible Blown Head Gasket
 

Not to intrude on Aero's thread, but im having a similar problem to his. Car runs like crap at idle, and steam is shooting out of the exhaust. Went to do a compression test, and upon cranking, oil shoots out of the compression tester. does this mean my valve seals are shot in addition to my head gasket?

Re: Possible Blown Head Gasket
 

Im still new, and currently diving into my car, but my guess would be messed up piston rings or a cracked head.

Re: Possible Blown Head Gasket
 

-Update-
Taking much longer than expected, but I guess I can't help it really since I don't have much experience to go off of. Got down to the point where i am about to take off the intake manifold and then comes the headers. All of the bolts are off and everything, but the drivers side headers has one portion still stuck onto the intake manifold and I cant remove it. I have no idea what to do from here to try and separate it without damaging the engine and anything else for that matter. The rest of the areas that the intake manifold and the headers are connected to, are all loose and able to come off, its just this one area.

Re: Possible Blown Head Gasket
 

-update-
Finally putting the car back together but I forgot that as we were taking apart the exhaust manifold on the drivers side, I happened to break the front two studs that were on it and I believe they were used to old the heat shield or bracket. I was able to get them out of the header and all but now I have been looking around for replacement studs but to of no avail and I have already check napa oreilly autozone rock auto and arp. All are coming with either the same sized wrong stud or they don't have it at all. I have no idea as to what I can do or where I can find suitable studs to replace the broken ones. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Re: Possible Blown Head Gasket
 

Um, there's no heat shield, but the lower bolt also holds the rear power steering pump bracket (I need to figure out what I'm going to do with mine at the moment).

And they're not studs... Unless someone replaced them improperly at some point, the only studs in the exhaust manifolds are for the crossover pipe and donuts, and the bolts are a standard M8x1.25 bolt. I believe, when I replaced mine, I used bolts about 1.5 and 2 inches long. However, the exception to the rule are the bolts for the rear alternator and power steering brackets. In which case, if you had the 2 studs in the intake plenum for the A/C compressor bracket, you should take one with you to see if you can get another of comparable length.

Worse comes to worse, get threaded rod and cut it.

Re: Possible Blown Head Gasket
 

-Update-
the studs/bolts came in, and I am putting the car back together just ran into another problem. I found out that 2 of the 6 fuel injectors are bad (but not sure how bad they really are to be honest) one of the fuel injectors is missing the little nozzle at the end of it, while the other one's nozzle is cracked. They are pretty expensive to just replace and I have been looking but I havent been able to find any kind of repair kits or anything related to just buying the nozzles to put at the bottom of the injectors. Other than that, everything else is ready to be put back on so far.

Re: Possible Blown Head Gasket
 

Also for a better idea of what I am trying to say here is a link to an autozone fuel injector and if you look at the picture, I am referring to the blue cap part. Hope this helps clarify.
http://www.autozone.com/autozone/par...1_71672_12216_

Re: Possible Blown Head Gasket
 

Re: Possible Blown Head Gasket
 

:yup: Southbay is excellent.

Re: Possible Blown Head Gasket
 

That umbrella part(blue part)you don't have to have on there. Believe me I busted off those on my GN injectors I was using a while back. I kept using them for months on my turbo set up. Im not sure what there really there for but they will still work. But it is NOT correct to use those injectors without the umbrellas. I did it because I couldn't afford new injectors at the moment..lol

I would just suggest buying new ones from southbay if I was in your shoes though. I got referbed 48lbs injectors for less then 140 bucks after our 10% TGO discount. So if you have the cash....get new ones and call it a day.

Re: Possible Blown Head Gasket
 

-Update-
late update, but my car is back up and running!
Turns out the problem with the car after putting it back together was on my end. I thought I correctly set up the timing according to the book but took it to an actual mechanic and they said right off the bat that the timing was way off and retarded. Once they fixed that they also messed with the TPS. I no longer have significant engine surges and excessive power loss as when we just got done putting the engine back together. What makes me feel even better, despite the fact that I still didnt put the car back together 100% correctly, is that all of the hard work,time, frustration, etc. that was put into the car of cleaning and changing all of the gaskets did not go to waste. Did a compression test and all cylinders came out at 140 (not like the 150's beforehand but at least this time they are all the same pressure).
For now, the mechanic shop told me that the ECM is going to have to be reset and I have to drive my car around for awhile, and if any more problems occur after say 4-7 days of driving, then my ECM may have gone bad. Hopefully that is not the case.
Other than that, my car is ready to be driven again. Now I can work on other things that I've always wanted to do, like new headlights (since mine are really dim) and a new kicking sound system :D
Also, I am not sure if i should get HID's or just get bright bulbs, but I am also unfamiliar on changing the headlights in general, so more studying for me :p

Re: Possible Blown Head Gasket
 

Thanks for the info, but I ended up checking out http://injector-rehab.com/shop/. I didnt have anywhere near enough money myself to buy new injectors, so I tried to just rebuild the ones that were originally in the car. It worked out fine, and only spent probably about $20 max.

Re: Possible Blown Head Gasket
 

I seriously doubt the ECM being bad... You need to reset the valves. Use a compression gauge if you absolutely have to, but, IIRC, the 2.8 should have at least 20 more PSI compression pressure per cylinder. I know mine had more than that, even in #4, which had a bad rod bearing (actually, it was GONE) and the piston wasn't coming fully to TDC.

Also, IDK about the 89s, but I know that no other 2.8 needs to be driven for the ECM to relearn what it's doing.

Re: Possible Blown Head Gasket
 

hmmm well that does actually make me concerned now. Well before the headgasket change the cylinders were reading off as 150 except for cylinders 3/5 and they were 110/125. I am still not fully aware of how this car works, but I figured that this guy would know more than me and decided to just do as he said. But thanks for the heads up. I'll definitely update you guys again once the week is over to see what happens.

Re: Possible Blown Head Gasket
 

-update-
my car is running fine, except that I believe something is wrong with my starter possibly? Sometimes I have to keep my key turned for a couple seconds longer than i should in order for my car to get started and sometimes it starts as soon as I turn my key. Also once again code 32 has popped up and pops up every so often when I drive but my car seems to be doing fine. I never changed out the EGR valve itself but I have replaced its gasket. I have read the page in the forums about the "lowdown on code 32" but I would love for me to finally be rid of code 32.