Hi
This is my first post. It's a pleasure to be part of this forum and community! I'm a new aspiring backyard mechanic with not much experience. I have 3 cars, 2 volvo 740 wagons and my chevy malibu. It's been fun learning how to fix up my cars!
Last weekend I finally got the heads out of my 2002 3.1L Chevy Malibu with 207,000 miles. This car is a beast and has taken me cross country and back more than once. Here are the symptoms as to why Im doing work on this car: My car was overheating, and even without a thermostat, radiator fluid would not pass through the engine and would leak down the left side (opposite the water pump), where the lower intake manifold and heads meet. I diagnosed that I need new intake gaskets.
Since I found out it's not much more work to get to the head gasket, I decide to get a FelPro Headgasket up kit. I got the heads out this weekend, and am getting the heads back from the machine shop tomorrow.
I have some question and some pics to help illustrate them. Any and all comments are welcome and much appreciated
Is there a readiator drain plug on the engine block? I drained the system through the radiator drain plug, but it obviously didn't help much
As you can see, there a whole bunch of orange crud in the different holes and ports.
If flakes and solids go into the holes, how do I get it out??? How/should I clean that stuff out?
Here's a closeup of the cloudy orange junk in the block.
Is this normal? Should my engine block look like this?
Here's the big question. I broke 3 head to exhaust manifold stud bolts. The machine shop is retapping the holes. I've looked online for replacement bolts but have been unsucsefful. Where can I get more of these bolts? Can I just buy bolts a little shorter than the length of the bolt pictured up to the stuck nuts?
Thanks everyone for the help! If you have a sec please let me know your general impressions of the condition of the engine.