97 Achieva mystery

[Samdad328]

I recently bought this car because it ran great with a little hesitation. Recently, my wife drove it down the street one morning to work and it seemed unable to accelerate. She put it into park and revved the engine, then the it seemed fine. Later that day the car quit (after starting and running perfectly up to that point).

The car will start, but it sounds like it is out of time. Backfires through intake and runs horribly. Quits after a few seconds, sounding like it is coming apart. And when running, the oil light is on.
Car ran great for 2000 miles and now this?
It is a 3.1 with 136k.
Thanks in advance for the help.

[Samdad328]

Heres the answer to the mystery. This engine (like so many 3.1s) had an intake leak (antifreeze). This results in coolant leaking onto a cam bearing which finally seized the cam and the camshaft broke. This stopped the oil pump (runs off of cam) left valves in the cylinders which hit pistons. Final call, engine junk. Replaced engine and waiting to fire.

[bearcat58]

I had an earlier model Achieva. Ran perfect for many years until one day, my "wife" called me to come pick her up on the highway. For the next 4 months we spent several hundreds of dollars with Auto shops to figure out what was the problem. Even GM could not figure out what it was.
That same old thing.....It would not happen to anyone else except us.
Cold, it would start and run oK until it warmed up. It then acted like I threw a wrench into the engine or just simply shut off. It would die. It would stutter. It would bite you if it had a chance. Seemed like a uncontroled child.
When I took it to the last private Auto shop- "for the last time", they told me "We can not find any problem"........here is your bill- $450.00.
I said that is enough.
I started taking apart this car. Had to purchase a set of "Eagle Claw" wrenches to take the Ignition housing off of the back of the engine.
What I found was a 4" crack in the housing that created a spark jump after it warmed up. This housing cost me maybe $80.00............and when I replaced it, "OH MY God". It was like a brand new car. I ran for 4 more years without one hint of a problem.

By the way.........Do you know what "Achieva" means?

[BNaylor]

Originally Posted by Samdad328

Heres the answer to the mystery. This engine (like so many 3.1s) had an intake leak (antifreeze). This results in coolant leaking onto a cam bearing which finally seized the cam and the camshaft broke. This stopped the oil pump (runs off of cam) left valves in the cylinders which hit pistons. Final call, engine junk. Replaced engine and waiting to fire.

Thanks for the update. Since the mystery has been resolved this thread has been closed due to the age of the thread.