My now deadish 3000GT....

[youngcaradvc]

Okay, just to clear things:

My father went to go check out the car which I found it off of craigslist. I had him check it out because he lives much closer to where this person lives and can just stop by on the way home from work. When he drove it, the pulleys made no noise, the tcu worked, and we had no idea of the cylinder problem. It wasn't until the next day (after we bought it), when my father took the car to our close neighbor whom has a shop, because he heard some sqeeking (pulley). It was then when Alex (the mechanic) realized that there was also a problem with the 6th cylinder, but did not do a compression test, he just assumed that it might have been a bad spark plug, because 3 of them take time to replace, people get lazy and don't do it. My dad drove the car up here, about 180 miles from his location. The TCU was still working fine until two days after when I drove it. Then I came on here and asked about it. We then took it down to our local mechanic, whom inspected it and gave us the bad news, the car would almost have not passed smog in its current condition, which has been a condition right when we bought it. Im not sure about his quote, it does seem drastically high, labor here is 75 an hour. And because of the 3000GT engine bay, it takes time to get in there and find out whats going on. Thats why the drastic price. It was partially my fault, I definetly shouldn't have bought it without having it checked out more, and now I have to live with the consequences. We haven't taken any drastic messures yet, but we are going to inform the Vallco 76 Station (whom performed the smog inspection) of our intentions, if it goes that far. We are having an emissions test being done just to make sure that the car won't pass smog. If the car does pass, then I will either put in a new engine, or part out the car and take the loss. Or possibly do labor by myself but since I don't know too much I would doubt that would happen.

I know I will be battered for making a mistake but it just something to learn from I suppose.

[Igovert500]

Well count it as a life lesson and move on, don't beat yourself up too much.
So do you know exactly what is wrong with the engine? Why the low compression? If it is only a blown head gasket, it is possible the entire engine may not need to be replaced if it didn't overheat and no bearings spun.
Also, you may want to try and find a member or a shop near you that knows these cars, you maybe able to get a better deal.

[youngcaradvc]

Well when my dad drove it up here the engine was very hot and he said it started to over heat about the last 15 mins. Can't be good I know. The guy who is doing the work is as close as I am going to get, he has worked on many Mitusbishis and just had a VR4 in last month. I will have to ask him more question to see what he thinks is the reason, but it seems like its a lot of labor just to get in there.

[Igovert500]

Probably the head gasket leaking then. If your dad didn't let it overheat you maybe good. If it did overheat, you may need to replace the heads.

If you are really lucky, you may only need to replace the coolant, oil, and head gasket, if you aren't it could mean new heads or an engine rebuild. Don't count yourself out yet until your mechanic pulls hte heads, but on the same note, don't be too optimistic.

[Linebckr49]

yes, the worst possible scenario for overheating is that the heads get warped and need to be machined or replaced. however, i have never heard of this happening w/ overheating on our cars. i'll do some searching, but from just day-to-day reading on 3si, i've never heard of someone overheating, then having to replace their heads b/c of it.

as a testament to the durability of our block, but more so our heads, i once over heated 3 times on the way home from college one Christmas. ya know where the red "H" is on the temp gauge? well the needle on my gauge was far beyond the "H". this happened 3 times as i tried, between overheating events, to add water, coolant, hotwire the fans to the battery, and other various remedies. when it was overheating, it stayed up there beyond the H range for 10-15 minutes.

i thought i was screwed, b/c i definitely would have blown a head gasket, or my heads were warped. turns out, my thermostat had melted into one metal peice, prohibiting coolant from flowing through the system. a mechanic i trust did a leakdown test and other tests, and everything turned out fine. no leaks in the head gaskets, and heads are perfectly fine. only thing that needed to be replaced was the thermostat (and it was 13 yrs old at the time). so price of thermostat, labor, leakdown/pressure test, in total it was just around $200.

but that's just my case, but a pretty good one, at that.

so before your mechanic pulls the heads, you might tell him to do a leakdown test to make sure everything holds pressure fine and there are no leaks in the systems.

best of luck with it all. keep us informed.