your opinion

Okay my Aunt is going to give me her 1996 cutlass supreme .it has only 89,000 miles on it very clean body no rust, leather etc.

So i have been driving it the last couple of days and it drives smooth and everything. But i noticed that once its hot at every stoplight or when i stopped at a drive threw the temp gauge would go up a little past halfway , fans would kick in and than temp would go down.It constantlydid its 30 degress outside....


So i asked about it and she said it has a coolant leak so im thinking intake or head gaskets , so sure enough coolant was low, so i refilled it .the next day i drove about 20 miles. checked coolant, coolant bottle was empty , I got under the car and saw coolant dripping from the flywheel cover,

Than i check the oil cap and pcv and what do u know looks like coolant a snotty looking yellowish substance, and she uses the yellow all make coolant. Oil doesn't look like milk shake...


So i had a 3100 engine before and what happened was intake gaskets went bad and coolant leaked in the motor and outside the motor, which seems to be what is the case now


I called around so far 300-400 on lower gaskets 800-1000 for heads. with the possibility of the engine already bieng permanently damaged.
The thing is she said its been doing that since May 2008 its march 2009.

Im thinking maybe just drive it until it goes out and drop another one in , any suggestions?

For the $40-$90 (felpro gaskets listed on autozone) it costs for the intake gasket set and the 6 hours it takes to do the job, I would just do it. You only take up half a day and spend minimal cash. If it saves you a tow its already paid for itself. Most people can take care of an intake manifold gasket problem as long as they take their time. Autozone also has a walkthrough with pictures and torque specs in their repair info section.

Agreed!

I'll vote with them too ! I just finished one of these myself, with the help of the good folks here. It took me a little longer than 6 hours, but I wasn't in a hurry, and I wanted to be careful (feeble mind, ya know).
With the help here, and the "Search" function, I figured that I saved enough to do struts & brakes too. Good luck !

Wal-mart carries a torque wrench for around $25. I bought one about a week ago for putting an intake gasket on. Maybe able to find one cheaper somewhere else I just thought I'd throw that in because you will need one too as someone mentioned above. I'm not sure if they have that as a loaner or not at autozone.

You need an inch/lb torque wrench to do this properly.

yea I'm gonna grab a torque wrench and try to knock this out. Last time i drove it the coolant was gone in about 20 miles of driving. I looked in the front valve cover and its the snout looking substance stuck too the sides.


I't does not get hot fast or over heat so its probably not heads... I just hope after its fixed my engine doesent go out i know some damage has already been done....


Also as far as the gunk in the valvecovers im sure its throughout the engine. Now i can clean the valvecovers myself once i take them off. Anything in particular i could use to clean out the rest of the engine?

You need an inch/lb torque wrench to do this properly.


I didn't know that, but for my vehicle, completely different make and model, called for foot pounds.

I also still use the same wrench though when torque specs call for inch pounds. For example, if it called for 180 inch pounds I would set my just convert that to foot pounds. So I would set the wrench to 15 foot pounds. Have I been doing this wrong all of that time, how could it make a difference, unless I guess they aren't as accurate for inch pounds, I guess maybe it could be off even though if set to fifteen foot pounds it might not be be calibrated well enough to be exactly 180 inch pounds. I think I just answered my own question anyways I'm not sure but I would trust the guy who said get the inch pounds torque wrench.

That is a very inaccurate way to tighten the bolts as these bolts usually require settings in lower in/lb range and that wrench is not calibrated closely enough for that work.

OK now I'm a bit confused so i got down to the lower intake gaskets and the upper parts of the gasket was not flush with with the its surface
hard to explain...


But i got to the parts store and the guy asks do i have regular rockers or roller ones he said the roller rockers gaskets have the push rod guides and the regular rockers are the gaskets without the guides.

So I know I have regular rocker arms. but why do the gaskets on the car have the push rod guides on them. ( I had this, the lower intakes done in 2006) is it possible the wrong gaskets were used maybe thats why they don't line up right and why they started to leak?

Is it anyway to know which i need?

Are you sure you do not have rollers in your 3.1?

The roller rockers have the little roller at the tip right?

Mine doesn't have a roller

i have a 96 cutlass supreme coupe and i've been trying to figure out whats up with the cooling system myself

the coolant is a dark red color and theres black gooey buildup on the sides of the reserve... the temp gauge stays at or below the first line (relatively cool) while i'm driving but if i leave it running in park for more than 15 minutes it gets to about halfway (i haven't let it run longer) and the coolant level drops in the reservoir


should i just flush it and replace the coolant? or is this sufficient evidence of a leak/other problem?


notes:
bought the car last june with 64k miles on it (it just hit 75k on thursday)

If your loosing coolant and its not leaking out at a hose or leaking externally its a good chance its going into the engine. I would definitely get it checked out. the 3100 engine is notorious for lower gasket failure.

Early gm Dex cool also creates a muddy substance in the cooling system so getting it flushed would be wise