Head or Intake ???
Bunky1267
12-07-2007, 05:25 PM
We have a 2000 Venture and the Waterpump seized and threw the Belt, I replaced the water pump and couldn't get the radiator to stay full , I checked the oil and it's way up the dipstick.. Is there an Easy way to tell if the Intake is leaking ???
It has 150,000 + miles I think I would just change the engine rather than fix the intake or heads What are others opinions ???
It has 150,000 + miles I think I would just change the engine rather than fix the intake or heads What are others opinions ???
534BC
12-08-2007, 05:18 AM
I would have it tested to make sure there is not a cracked casting. To fill radiator there are two bleeder screws, but if the water is in oil then you have bigger trouble.
A pressure test will probably tell if the leak is (maybe not where it is) and may even push a lot more water into the oil.
A pressure test will probably tell if the leak is (maybe not where it is) and may even push a lot more water into the oil.
LMP
12-08-2007, 05:48 PM
IF it is steaming coolant out, or needs coolant refill all the time, or the heater delivers heat in a random fashion, you have a head gasket problem. It is all too common, my brother had his 2002 reworked for that reason - with satisfactory results though, but be sure the job is done in a professional way. Use new head bolts .
SEMORiverHills
12-10-2007, 01:53 PM
How is your temperature gauge behaving? Any wild fluctuations or 'floating' back and forth between bottom and top of normal range, or even red? I have a 1998 Venture, and just completed a head gasket job, and I first identified a problem existed by the temp gauge acting very erratically - large amounts of air entering the coolant system. That situation persisted for a couple of days, until, upon start-up one evening, I got a bad miss and white, sweet-smelling smoke started billowing from the exhaust.
It unfortunately sounds like, judging by your description of a big rise in oil level, you have coolant leaking into your oil. However, the source of that is not something that can necessarily be pinpointed without disassembling the top end. Much more likely to be a head gasket than lower intake manifold gasket, due simply to the much lower potential for a leaking LIM gasket to allow coolant to get to oil, by design. However, if it is a head gasket, I would expect to see a great deal of white smoke from the exhaust as coolant entering the cylinder(s) is burned.
Hopefully someone has a better theory for diagnosing your situation than the one I offer here. But here's a little advice: if you do the LIM job, it just makes sense to also pull the heads and have them inspected for cracks (Magnafluxed), resurfaced, possibly reworked (valves ground, new guides/seals etc.), etc. Talk about peace of mind, and you're already right there. I found R&R the heads on mine to be honestly the most straight-forward part of the job. There is also have been individuals on this forum who have done a LIM job, only to go back as little as a FEW WEEKS later to do head gaskets.
If you do decide to tear down the top end, I offer this insight before you decide to automatically replace the engine itself: my van had 194,000 miles when I did the job, and my cylinders had very, very little ring groove. That powerplant has many, many miles left in it, as long as the peripheral components will hold out. If your van has been regularly maintained, and driven reasonably, I would expect your engine to be in really good shape.
I hope this helps some!
It unfortunately sounds like, judging by your description of a big rise in oil level, you have coolant leaking into your oil. However, the source of that is not something that can necessarily be pinpointed without disassembling the top end. Much more likely to be a head gasket than lower intake manifold gasket, due simply to the much lower potential for a leaking LIM gasket to allow coolant to get to oil, by design. However, if it is a head gasket, I would expect to see a great deal of white smoke from the exhaust as coolant entering the cylinder(s) is burned.
Hopefully someone has a better theory for diagnosing your situation than the one I offer here. But here's a little advice: if you do the LIM job, it just makes sense to also pull the heads and have them inspected for cracks (Magnafluxed), resurfaced, possibly reworked (valves ground, new guides/seals etc.), etc. Talk about peace of mind, and you're already right there. I found R&R the heads on mine to be honestly the most straight-forward part of the job. There is also have been individuals on this forum who have done a LIM job, only to go back as little as a FEW WEEKS later to do head gaskets.
If you do decide to tear down the top end, I offer this insight before you decide to automatically replace the engine itself: my van had 194,000 miles when I did the job, and my cylinders had very, very little ring groove. That powerplant has many, many miles left in it, as long as the peripheral components will hold out. If your van has been regularly maintained, and driven reasonably, I would expect your engine to be in really good shape.
I hope this helps some!
Bunky1267
12-10-2007, 03:02 PM
Thanks For all that replied to my post, Here's my thing I don't notice any white smoke or High temp on the Gauge.. (It runs a line or 2 less then 1/2) But I don't feel the heat from the heater is normal, So thats why I Think it's a Intake rather then a Head... But I could be wrong, I don't know if the intake is a Do it yourselfer job or not and I personally don't want to tackle it.. and your right as long as you have it apart you should check the heads and change the gaskets... The Van has 150,000 + miles and when the oil is dirty it sounds like a rod is loose.. So for the price of the job to fix the head or Intake I can purchase a used motor and have it installed with less miles.....JMO
LMP
12-14-2007, 11:33 AM
... I don't notice any white smoke
...and you would not. This is something on the verge of a fairy tale to think white smoke would signal a slight coolant leak to the cylinders. NOrmal combustion products will yield 1.3 gallon of water (exiting as vapour ) for each gallon of fuel burned and this is the water that condenses in the exhaust system and drips down until the pipe is hot enough to carry the vapour as such to the tail of the exhaust system.
C7H16 + 11O2 = 7CO2 + 8H2O
by molecular weight:
100 + 352 = 308 + 144 (452 on both sides, nothing gained, nothing lost)
thus 1.00 pound of fuel C7H16 requires 3.52 pound of O2 (or 15.179 pound of air, the rest being Nitrogen carried through almost unchanged) and yields roughly 3 pounds of CO2 and 1.4 pound of water as combustion by products.
at 60 mph, when your car burns 3 gallons per hour, you have like 4 gallons of water coming out as vapour....a lot of vapour...so even emptying the entire cooling system in one hour would not generate as much "smoke" as what already goes out normally.
In any case, I wish you good luck because this problem is not somethnig anyone would want to have and it happens much too often with that engine type ...but Chrysler's 2.7 is not much better either.. After 100 years of engine building, it is shocking that this problem has resurfaced so blatantly in the last 10 years....
...and you would not. This is something on the verge of a fairy tale to think white smoke would signal a slight coolant leak to the cylinders. NOrmal combustion products will yield 1.3 gallon of water (exiting as vapour ) for each gallon of fuel burned and this is the water that condenses in the exhaust system and drips down until the pipe is hot enough to carry the vapour as such to the tail of the exhaust system.
C7H16 + 11O2 = 7CO2 + 8H2O
by molecular weight:
100 + 352 = 308 + 144 (452 on both sides, nothing gained, nothing lost)
thus 1.00 pound of fuel C7H16 requires 3.52 pound of O2 (or 15.179 pound of air, the rest being Nitrogen carried through almost unchanged) and yields roughly 3 pounds of CO2 and 1.4 pound of water as combustion by products.
at 60 mph, when your car burns 3 gallons per hour, you have like 4 gallons of water coming out as vapour....a lot of vapour...so even emptying the entire cooling system in one hour would not generate as much "smoke" as what already goes out normally.
In any case, I wish you good luck because this problem is not somethnig anyone would want to have and it happens much too often with that engine type ...but Chrysler's 2.7 is not much better either.. After 100 years of engine building, it is shocking that this problem has resurfaced so blatantly in the last 10 years....
SEMORiverHills
12-14-2007, 02:04 PM
I do not in any way question the chemical analysis above; I have no reason to do so, as the information given is beyond the scope of my understanding.
However, I would like to offer this simple, layman's observation of what happened when my head gasket failed:
A tremendous amount of white smoke started coming out of my exhaust pipe, the likes of which I have rarely seen. I will not claim that smoke to be a direct product of burning coolant/water mix; however, my van had never put on this 'smoke machine simulation' before my head gasket failed, and after investigating the gasket condition upon removal, I am 100% certain that coolant was flowing directly into the #1 Cylinder.
However, I would like to offer this simple, layman's observation of what happened when my head gasket failed:
A tremendous amount of white smoke started coming out of my exhaust pipe, the likes of which I have rarely seen. I will not claim that smoke to be a direct product of burning coolant/water mix; however, my van had never put on this 'smoke machine simulation' before my head gasket failed, and after investigating the gasket condition upon removal, I am 100% certain that coolant was flowing directly into the #1 Cylinder.
LMP
12-14-2007, 02:33 PM
Interesting, and frankly, I was not adressing directly your assessment and did not intend to offense in any way.
YOur details are revealing and I'd suspect that what you describe arrives just after startup and is the direct result of accumulation, after some time of rest, of coolant in the exhaust manifold (or suppose it can accumulate in the cylinder and it is expulsed to the manifold on the first exhaust stroke) and there we have an instant cup of coolant mixture waiting to go somewhere and in the very first seconds of engine operation, it would be boiled away by the exhaust and produce what you describe and this scenario I totally agree with.
Sometimes the interpretation is seen as if the prenomenon you have described would be present in a continuous manner, which obviously, it should not, once the "cup of coolant" will have been blown away.
Fun is, facts are facts and what is seen is seen...and there is always an explanation, and sometimes the leak is there but is so small that it waits for vacuum from the piston strokes to enter the combustion chamber and in that case, there is a leak, but no accumulation and no mushroom out of the exhaust pipe, hence no smoke in that case does not mean no leak . I've had an Omni with a blown gasket for a long time and it would never give a hint of white smoke....but it would "burn" its coolant, overheat, boil, and deliver no heat from the heater....
So, as the "mythbusters" say on Discovery channel, Verdict is: Plausible!
YOur details are revealing and I'd suspect that what you describe arrives just after startup and is the direct result of accumulation, after some time of rest, of coolant in the exhaust manifold (or suppose it can accumulate in the cylinder and it is expulsed to the manifold on the first exhaust stroke) and there we have an instant cup of coolant mixture waiting to go somewhere and in the very first seconds of engine operation, it would be boiled away by the exhaust and produce what you describe and this scenario I totally agree with.
Sometimes the interpretation is seen as if the prenomenon you have described would be present in a continuous manner, which obviously, it should not, once the "cup of coolant" will have been blown away.
Fun is, facts are facts and what is seen is seen...and there is always an explanation, and sometimes the leak is there but is so small that it waits for vacuum from the piston strokes to enter the combustion chamber and in that case, there is a leak, but no accumulation and no mushroom out of the exhaust pipe, hence no smoke in that case does not mean no leak . I've had an Omni with a blown gasket for a long time and it would never give a hint of white smoke....but it would "burn" its coolant, overheat, boil, and deliver no heat from the heater....
So, as the "mythbusters" say on Discovery channel, Verdict is: Plausible!
16th hippy
12-20-2007, 07:59 AM
another easy slightly older school way to tell is start the engine, remove radiator cap and put hand over filler. if you feel any major sucking or pushing against your hand, then head gasket is blown. if not then LIM gasket could have gone from normal small leak to outside of engine to a little bigger into the engine. either way warrants more investigation. my personal opinion is to NOT pull the heads unless there is a confirmed problem there. "if it aint broke, don't fix it".
rockwood84
01-12-2008, 02:32 AM
a head gasket most of the time causes the white /light grey smoke out the tailpipe you will loose coolant. usually it will run hot ,the temp gauge will steady climb until it runs hot. also you can't hold your bare hand any where near the end of the tail pipe. according where it blowed at you will either have a hard miss on one or more cylinders. the oil cap will most of the time have white milky stuff in it.a blown intake gasket will make the temp gauge go crazy as it will fluctuate all over as the coolant level gets lower in the rad sometimes it will only loose a little coolant then some times it will loose a lot. and you can't hold your bare hand six inches from end of tailpipe. it will not white smoke . i you plan to diy get a manual on it and it will take you about twelve hours to do only intake gaskets and about 4 days to do the intakes and head gaskets. as it is tough to get down to the head gaskets. most shops charge anywhere from $600.00 to $1500.00 and do not take it to a dealer. they will charge $2500.00 to $3000.00 for it.as they usually pull the motor out and put it on a table so they can get to everything easy. i 'm betting from what you saying its the intake gaskets.
Automotive Network, Inc., Copyright ©2026