99 grand am with tons of issues

hello all. i just got a 2 door grand am se 1999 with the v6 3400. the person that i got it from was was a big liar that said it ran great. about 10 miles down the road we tried to roll the windows down and they both broke. about 200 miles later it started over heating and the coolent would boil over and spray out of the over fill hose on the fill tank. i stopped and talked to a parts dealer and he said that the same happened to him. is this my head gasket like he thought? i removed the stat and this made no difference and i also used the bleeder valve to get air bubbles out of the cooling system. also when i did that the engine started idoling at 3000rpm and another friend told me that it may be the intake manifold gasket. should i do compression test and see if a couple cylnders are low?? or remove the hose to the throttle body and cover it with my hand to see if it stalls? if infact doing that is indeed the way to test the intake gasket.

hello all. i just got a 2 door grand am se 1999 with the v6 3400. the person that i got it from was was a big liar that said it ran great. about 10 miles down the road we tried to roll the windows down and they both broke. about 200 miles later it started over heating and the coolent would boil over and spray out of the over fill hose on the fill tank. i stopped and talked to a parts dealer and he said that the same happened to him. is this my head gasket like he thought? i removed the stat and this made no difference and i also used the bleeder valve to get air bubbles out of the cooling system. also when i did that the engine started idoling at 3000rpm and another friend told me that it may be the intake manifold gasket. should i do compression test and see if a couple cylnders are low?? or remove the hose to the throttle body and cover it with my hand to see if it stalls? if infact doing that is indeed the way to test the intake gasket.
Welcome to AF. Are there signs of coolant in the oil, if pressure tested does it hold pressure, you must do basic cooling system diagnostics here to determine the problem.

Sounds like a gasket either way here.

Either coolant in the oil, or oil in the coolant. The leak can also go into the exhaust manifold.

How many miles on the GA?

A compression test can reveal a blown head gasket.
Though I hav had the test come back fine after several checks, and in the end the gasket was indeed blown.
I Replaced the intake gaskets 3x in a row because of this mistake. :banghead:

So now I know, if you hav the motor tore down that far, you might as well replace the HG while you are in there.
A few extra bucks, and If you ask me, well worth the extra effort. :grinyes:

head gasket guranteed

no sign of any oil in the coolent, or for that matter any coolent in the oil. also the car just hit 164000 miles a few days ago.

Do a compression test and see if any cylinders are low or drop off the presure real fast.

If it is overheating(above220deg) and gurling out coolant continuosly(w/no thermostat) youre probly going to be replacing the headgaskets , with 164k miiles it might be that time.

Maybe you'll get lucky and its just the LIM.
If you need further assistance just ask :)

Good Luck averageguy !