[stonecold0469]

so my dad also has a chevrolet lumina 1998 and today the car came burning hot with the temp at 260 and the hot light in the cluster on...now here's the deal...the radiator has no water in it...refilling i have to keep adding water like it's something broken or has a leak...but it doesn't...no water in engine and transmission...now i used the car today all day long to find out it was overheating again...so i came back home and i saw the lower intake manifold gasket leaking oil...near the power steering pump...and the radiator it's empty again...what can cause this?

[nitehawkjcb]

It could be either the head gasket and/or the LIM gasket. You could do a compression test to ensure it's not your head gasket - but don't count it out. Hopefully just the LIM gasket went bad.

[Dale3goodwrench]

Pull the dipstick and check the level on it. I bet all that water is going in the oil. Like he said do a compression check to see if its a head gssket. if its not then its your LIM gasket.

[stonecold0469]

Dale3goodwrench, on 22 January 2010 - 10:48 AM, said:

Pull the dipstick and check the level on it. I bet all that water is going in the oil. Like he said do a compression check to see if its a head gssket. if its not then its your LIM gasket.

Like I said before...there is no sign of water in the engine or tranny what I actually don't know is this...aparently...there seems to be like oil sludge on the radiator neck and cap...does this gives a clue?

[Dale3goodwrench]

Is there lots of white smoke out the tail pipe?

[stonecold0469]

no...just nothing...i only see oil crawling from the lim when the car is overheating...but water consumption is awful...

[me6894]

Why would you drive it after it overheating from running out of coolant? It obviously has a leak. Get a pressure tester on it and pump it to 17psi and you will either see a leak or not. If you don't then you need to do a compression test.
If you ran it all the way up to 260* then you probably now have warped heads on top of the original problem.

This post has been edited by me6894: 22 January 2010 - 12:28 PM

[ChibiBlackSheep]

When my head gasket went in my 95 Lumina, I was constantly having air in the system and overheating, but I never really had a dramatic loss of coolant.

x10 on getting a pressure test to confirm the problem and fixing it ASAP

[stonecold0469]

0k, first of all my dad drove the car in 260... the car has no coolant leaks...water disappears...all the water last about 4 days of dd...the car runs great...no power lost at all...I will definitely get a compression tester and try that...I believe it's the LIM But will check compression before starting the work on it

[nitehawkjcb]

My LIM gasket leaked and caused oil to drip around my valve cover down on the exhaust, but I wasn't losing coolant. Have you looked at the underside of the hood, above the serpentine belt? If there's any wetness there, I'm betting you have a bad water pump.

[me6894]

Quote

the car has no coolant leaks...water disappears

If water disappears then there is a coolant leak, whether visible or not.

[stonecold0469]

i will do compression test tomorow morning and will also check the water pump... for leaks...

[Brendensmonte]

If it wasnt the problem before, because u have been driving with it overheating the heads are most likely warped by now. Going to need to get them machined or get new ones, as for finding the leak let the car run with new water in the system and let it warm up then look everywhere for steam or leaking water.
engine oil isn't a milky color?

[stonecold0469]

Heh it was the water pump that caused overheating...as far a water consumption still happening but the LIM gasket it's leaking a lot of oil...I preasure tested the system and nothing compression test was good.

[budweiser2938]

my pump is bad too :/ overflow tank empties in about 2-3 days.. taking it to have it changed tomorrow. looks like its gonna be about $275 total. Had the radiator replaced around 2 months ago, damn cooling system. haha

[NiftyMonte]

haha mine went bad last week. took about 20 min to get it replaced.

[budweiser2938]

haha did you do it? i just dont feel like messing with it, i always get pissed off somehow or another. it looks relatively easy to get to but eh, screw it lol.

[NiftyMonte]

i could have very easily done it, kind of angry at myself for not doing it. my grandpa came and did it for me. on the 3100 it is 8 bolts, so easy. take the belt off, take the 4 bolts off holding on the pulley, then take off the 5 holding the pump, scrape the old gasket off, then put the new one on.

[NiftyMonte]

son of a...

This post has been edited by NiftyMonte: 25 January 2010 - 03:54 PM

[budweiser2938]

lol well maybe the 3800 is more difficult haha... I just know I wont be finding out! unless they tell me how it went lol

[ChibiBlackSheep]

For the L36 disconnect battery, you drain the coolant, remove the accessory belt / water pump pulley bolts. Pull off the water pump and clean the gasket area.

Then reverse with a new gasket put on the water pump and tighten down the bolts, put the pulleys back on and re-fill coolant system.

[budweiser2938]

definitely sounds simple.. guess if I had a garage or something I'd be more tempted to do it. until then guess i'll be sucking up the labor costs

[NiftyMonte]

you don't need to drain the coolant, just put a catch tray underneath it when taking it off.

[budweiser2938]

oh ok true.. I mean I guess technically most of its already drained for the most part lol

[ChibiBlackSheep]

But this is dex-cool we are working with

I would drain and put new any chance I had lol

[kmfh95lumina]

budweiser2938, on 25 January 2010 - 02:55 PM, said:

my pump is bad too :/ overflow tank empties in about 2-3 days.. taking it to have it changed tomorrow. looks like its gonna be about $275 total. Had the radiator replaced around 2 months ago, damn cooling system. haha

I'm doing my own water pump replacement it cost me $23.99 after core

[me6894]

kmfh95lumina, on 09 April 2010 - 07:56 PM, said:

budweiser2938, on 25 January 2010 - 02:55 PM, said:

my pump is bad too :/ overflow tank empties in about 2-3 days.. taking it to have it changed tomorrow. looks like its gonna be about $275 total. Had the radiator replaced around 2 months ago, damn cooling system. haha

I'm doing my own water pump replacement it cost me $23.99 after core

Ya man the waterpumps on these motors are probably the easiest I've ever seen to change. You only need like 2 size sockets and it takes literally 20 minutes.