ok, this is a bit of a long story but i'll try to keep it simple. i bought a 88 trans am about 2 weeks ago. it came with a 1 year old crate engine, 350ci long block. the owner said that there was a 3yr warranty on the engine and that there were 2 years left on it and that it is transferable. so i purchased the car. fast forward to about a week later and problems begin to arise. my anti freeze was boiling after i got stuck in the snow. i took it to a master mechanic at my school and he said his educated guess was that it is a head gasket leak. we did 2 pressure tests on the coolant system and the pressure sky rocketed within 10 minutes. 1 test with the thermostat and one without.

so time to fix the head gasket. i get the previous owner to fax me the warranty and i read it. here i learn that if i do ANY type of performance modification to the car, i void the warranty. does that include the thermostat? i an't really make too much sense out of the warranty. i also find out that there is a $150 warranty tranfer fee.

my question is: lets say i pay for the warranty transfer and i take it to a mechanic (like midas) that's certified by the insurance company. do you think that midas would care if i removed the therm? is it even worth tranfering the warranty?

i also thought about doing it myself, but i've never done it before.

here is the warranty, sorry for the quality it was faxed and then scanned:

http://www.wolfyserver.org/jake/warranty.jpg

 

Well, I could not read that warranty, sorry. My first guess is to ask: Have you done any work to void the warranty? If not it may not be a bad idea to have it transferred. If you do in fact have a head gasket leak, that can run over $150 in parts and labor if you have a shop fix it.

I wonder what you mean by the "anti freeze was boiling". Did it over flow from the radiator at the cap? Why do you think you need head gaskets?

 

i dunno if i voided the warranty, ive taken off the throttle body and taken out the thermostat, thats about it. when i said my antifreeze was boiling, i meant that the antifreeze in the over flow tank was bubbling. the upper hose was pretty bloated too. it has boiled a few times now.

i think it's the head gasket because i took my car to the mechanic at my school. hes been a mechanic for over 40 years and jsut recently had 2 cars in the shop that had bad head gaskets. my exhaust smells like antifreeze and when we did a pressure test on the cooling system, it hit the "Danger" level in about 5 - 10 minutes. ive heard anywhere from $600 - $800 to fix it.


on abit of a side note, i bought thise car so i can work on it, modify it and have a lot of fun. if a warranty is going to prevent that, then i dont know if its worth having it

 

Well if you plan on modifing the car and you may have already voided the warranty, then I agree with you that is not worth your money to transfer the warranty.

You could however look into transfering the warranty now, just to get your head gaskets replaced. If you spend the $150 and save yourself from paying $600-800, then that is money well spent.

I would call the company that sold the engine and talk with them about it. Find out who has to do the repair, how you get an authorization for the repair, etc...

Good luck.

 

yeah i see what your sayin. meanwhile today, i took it to my dads friend whos a mechanic...he has a tester that plugs into the 12 pin connector. he said that the sensor for the fans is malfunctioning and that could be the reason why im overheating..plus i have no thermostat in. i HOPE thats the problem. if not, i may have cracked heads

 

i really don't see removing the thermostat for a pressure test as any kind of modification. it's like disconnecting an electrical connector and reconnecting it. just put it back. modifications are if you put a new intake manifold on it, swap in a cam, stuff like that. you haven't modified any of the parts the engine comes with. it wouldn't void if you changed your radiator, etc...

 

very few crate motors even come with a t-stat housing on them to begin with. Some of GMs do and some dont. I dont think changing a T-stat would affect it!

 

yeah, just to clarify, i'm not suggesting you cheat or lie to them or anything, i just don't think you did anything that would void a warranty.

and in that case, i also wouldn't see anything wrong with not mentioning it until they asked.

 

since you said that your exhaust smells like antifreeze then you definatly have a problem weather a sensor is malfunctioning or not. the malfunctioning sensor could have caused the problem in the first place. when you do have the heads removed make shure they check them for cracks and also the cylinder walls fro cracks. those are the only 2 places that water can leak into as well as the gaskets. aslo make shure there is no antifreeze in the oil, if there is your oil cap would have a white creamy gunk on it. if thats the case you definatly want the warrenty because that engine needs a complete rebuild