Head gasket is leaking 2001 Lesabre

[Rasp]

I was also joking back at you. Hope you caught the LOL at the end of it.

[Rasp]

Sometimes hard to tell when it is just typed. But Polarzak I understood yours as a joke and I failed an attempt at being sarcastically funny back at you. No offence intended on my part.

I was just joking. Terrible at it I guess

[Rasp]

As far as the engine is concerned. I will pull a plug myself and see what it looks like. I admit I was taking the mechanics word and experience as if it was solid proof that they would have checked and had solid evidence of a head gasket leak.

As far as overheating, I would say not since I owned the car and that has been about roughly 2 years. Car has always had the proper ratio of water : antifreeze for our cold Winter and warm summer.

With the dye test I might try another garage and see if I could get them to do this test. Unless of course its possible for myself to do it. Is it as easy as putting a piece of ph paper in the coolant and have it change a certain color or something like that?

[Jrs3800]

RASP, Has the upper intake ever been replaced? This is a very common failure and its very common to see garages other then GM see this as a head gasket issue.. I am 90% certain you do not have a head gasket issue, but an upper intake problem.. If you do the heads I will recommend to the Extreme if the upper intake has not been replaced that you replace it with an APN or Dorman upper intake...

Also if you have the original upper intake it will have a date stamp on the top of the intake, and you will find a white label to the side that will most likely say Delphi( older ones will say rochester )... If you have the original you may have had the composite erode away around the EGR port causing a leak in the upper intake as coolant passes through it, if this happens it will look like a blown head gasket..

My first suggestion for you if the car still starts is to get some cheap oil ran through it for a couple of minutes... This will wash any contamination away from the bearings...

If you want to be sure do a compression test.. But my gut says you have an upper intake failure

[HotZ28]

Originally Posted by Rasp

With the dye test I might try another garage and see if I could get them to do this test. Unless of course its possible for myself to do it. Is it as easy as putting a piece of ph paper in the coolant and have it change a certain color or something like that?

Click Here & Here for more info on the procedure.

[Rasp]

I did have the upper and lower intakes done a year ago. So if it is those again I'd be really ticked at the garage because it was them that did it. This leak started within the year it was done.

As for the Dye test, I called a few places and no one seems to do it. The places I called were fairly major garages. It seems like a great test but so far I haven't found anyone that does it. I'll check the plugs tomorrow.

I'm starting to wonder if the garage might be trying to not get caught up in a warranty issue with my upper and lower manifold gaskets. But wouldn't the coolant go in my oil if that were the case? My oil looks clean. and the level of oil on the dipstick is where it should be. If I had a coolant leak at the manifold wouldn't I see it in my oil???

The exhaust doesn't have any excessive white smoke. In fact it was a little warmer today and I had little to no smoke coming out of the exhaust pipe. Anyway I'll check the plugs and see what they meant by a little white.

[HotZ28]

Originally Posted by Rasp

I did have the upper and lower intakes done a year ago. So if it is those again I'd be really ticked at the garage because it was them that did it. This leak started within the year it was done.

Did you inquire about any warranty before, or after the work was complete? Most shops offer a 90-day warranty on repair labor, & manufacture warranty on the parts, so either way, labor would not be covered at this point. See if you have any written warranty period stipulated on your invoice. (Verbal warranties are not worth anything!) BTW, considering your engine has never overheated, or lacked proper coolant protection, I agree with Don (Jrs3800) and I find it hard to believe you have a blown head gasket. Of course, anything is possible!

As for the Dye test, I called a few places and no one seems to do it. The places I called were fairly major garages. It seems like a great test but so far I haven't found anyone that does it. I'll check the plugs tomorrow.

You could buy the dye test kit at NAPA for about 50-bucks, but in lieu of the dye test, you could do a leak-down test and watch for the presence of air bubbles in the radiator. This test will tell you if you have a leak between the combustion chamber & cooling system.

I'm starting to wonder if the garage might be trying to not get caught up in a warranty issue with my upper and lower manifold gaskets. But wouldn't the coolant go in my oil if that were the case? My oil looks clean. and the level of oil on the dipstick is where it should be. If I had a coolant leak at the manifold wouldn't I see it in my oil???

Not necessarily, you could have a leak between the intake port & water jacket port. Remember, one side has pressure and the other side has vacuum, so if the intake was not properly torqued, that could be a possibility. In addition, if the leak were in this area, it could only be sucked into the intake port and not leak into the crankcase.

The exhaust doesn't have any excessive white smoke. In fact it was a little warmer today and I had little to no smoke coming out of the exhaust pipe. Anyway I'll check the plugs and see what they meant by a little white.

In your climate, smoke from the exhaust pipe would be very common most of the time, unless the car has been driven some distance and the engine & exhaust reach full operating temp. Even then, a lot depends on the humidity. If you can, post some good pics of the plugs for us to view. If you need instructions on how to do this, let us know.

[Rasp]

Well i was thinking of working on this engine but I realized one important thing. I'm lazy. Soooo, I think I'm finished with LeSabres. I'm going to trade it in and buy a La Cross, I might go Lucerne. Not sure yet.

I have really enjoyed the Le Sabre forum but now I'm moving to the other car forum.

I'm sure I'll see many of you over there in the future.

[jcc3inc]

Hello,

Your problem may well be a leaking upper intake manifold; we have a '97 LeSabre where we lost antifreeze on a regular basis. The upper intake manifold is plastic; the place where the exhaust gas recirculation comes in has a small metal tube (that gets very hot) into the plastic manifold. Early designs had this hot tube fitting tightly into the plastic. With time, the heat erodes the plastic and antifreeze starts to leak slowly into the intake. When I removed the plastic UIM (upper intake manifold), the lower aluminum portion going into the heads had cavities where the antifreeze had collected; obviously here was the result of the leak.

The replacement that I used had a different design with a smaller metal tube for the exh gas and other provisions to prevent this fault. I cleaned up the intake area, replaced with a new UIM, and the antifreeze loss quit.

I do not know the history of the 2001 UIM but this may be the problem.

Regards,
Jack C.