Well I just bought my TTA yesterday and it only has 17,700 miles on it. Well when we went to pick it up the ugy said he had recently had the fluid flushed and we looked and there was coolant in the radiator but none in the tank. So we bought some and filled the tank up to the Hot Full line. Then we drove it like 300 miles home. When we got home the collant level was then at the cold full line. So today I drove it around and I let it warm up in the garage for baout 4 minutes before I drove it and the car has a leak right at the cat but there was fluid on the floor. My dad stuck his finger in it to smell it and said it was water. Well so I drove it for a good couple hours and when I got home my dad said he thinks I might have a blown head gasket (he's knows his cars pretty well and normally I agree with him). The car seems to idle a little rough bouncing around 700-900 rpm. I also had thew car just shut off on me twice don't really know why but I ould put it in park and it would start right up. If there is anyone who thinks they can help me it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Jared

 

I had coolant leaking from my engine for awhile. Turned out to be a cracked block!

I also had a head gasket go. When it did all the coolant went into the oil pan.


Imo its not a head gasket.

I could be wrong though, good luck with it and man that sucks. The guy you got it from probably knew about it.

 

is the oil dipstick milky or the coolant in the radiator looking milky or dirty? was it water or coolant that was leaking and where? if its just moisture coming from the exhaust during warm up, this is normal, if its green and under the engine, you have a coolant leak. you can pull all the spark plugs and see if they are white on the tips, this is a good indication that a head gasket or intake gasket is leaking. or just look all around the engine as best you can to look for any wet spots from coolant.

 

alright well someone one turbobuick.com said if it was producing white smoke it was probably the head gasket in which it was producing white smoke. However there are no other signs. The oil seems fine and the coolant in the radiator looks good. The only problems symptoms seem to be the magically disapearing coolant, the liquid (which doesn't smell like coolant at all) on the floor, and white smoke from the exhaust. The only thing of those that throws up a red flag for me is the missing coolant.

 

something else that will cause that is a leaking intake manifold, which these 60* can be known for. if you check all the spark plugs and all 6 are white, its probably an intake, if only one or two are white, its probably a head gasket. also, is the oil milky or the coolant in the radiator?

 

It's not a 60 degree motor, drdave88

The advice on the plugs still applies though. Definitely check 'em out.

turbobuick.com and gnttype.org are likely to be your primary sources for information regarding your motor.. with only 1557 of them making their way into thirdgens in factory form, TGO doesn't have nearly the expertise concerning them the buick sites do, and most of the TTA guys here probably post frequently over there too. Any little nuances in the motor, they're the guys who will have dealt with it most often.

 

TTA is a Buick 3.8 motor with some tweakes by Chevy. [Even then Chevy could not stand having a Buick motor in the car. And why they dropped it. There is no love in GM.]

Then 3.8s had a problem with the back number 6 cylinder. They blew the gasket easy but would still run fine. Except for the coolant coming out of the tail pipe. I would stop driving it and just change them man and anything else. It is a TTA and even with low miles I bet it was driven like a TTA.

I seen some pics of a geo with a sigle turbo 3.8 doing 11s.

 

yup, 11's with traction problems all they way.

 

Well we jsut got done doing a compression test and I think we had 3 cylinders at 155psi, 1 at 157, 1 at 150, and 1 at 148. So everything checked out and we had called the guy and then he let us know the overfill tank has a hole in the bottom of it. We looked and there's a decent amount of rust on the inner fender.

 

I'm sorry.. I assumed you would have checked that or I'd have mentioned it earlier

 

You had all the symptoms of a worn head gasket, but it turned out to be a whole under the overfill tank. Funny stuff.

 

Well at least its something simple and not a motor issue.

 

Amen to that.. last thing I'd want to do with my spankin' new 17k mile TTA is tear down the top end.

Oh.. wait.. I could never own a 17k mile TTA.. driving it would be sacrilidge, and I like to drive too much