98 SL1 head? gasket? block? :(

[ibri]

A while back my wife's Saturn started having a problem where this lovely caramely liquid stuff would come bubbling up out of the closed coolant resevoir. I pretty much knew that this was oil+coolant mixing but wanted to be sure so I flushed the system and filled it up. The same thing happened. Over the past couple months, as time has allowed I've been tearing the engine down and just got around to pulling the head off. I was really hoping for just a blown gasket, but now that I've gotten the head off I can't see anywhere on there where that might be the case. I'm not exactly sure what to look for, which is the reason I'm posting here. Would you all mind taking a gander at the following pics and see if you can't shed some light on the subject?

The only other culprits if it isn't the head gasket would be a cracked head or cracked block, correct?

http://ibri.halfzero.net:8000/images...n_block-01.jpg
http://ibri.halfzero.net:8000/images...n_block-02.jpg

[sierrap615]

in the mid 90s saturn had a handfull of poorly cast SOHC heads. i don't know exactly where to check for cracks, but if memory serves check the camshaft journal bores.

EDIT:
just found some cool photos

crack-
http://www.saturnfans.com/photos/sho...p/photo/14740/

welded repair-
http://www.saturnfans.com/photos/sho...p/photo/15436/

[ibri]

Thanks for the reply.

I checked out those pictures and couldn't really tell where the crack is on that head. It says it's just above where the head bolt is so is it at the base of that rightmost column thing? I checked mine out and couldn't see any cracks around there. Would something like that cause the engine to still run ok or would it run like crap? Ours ran fine, it just spewed the caramely substance and got really hot.

Someone else suggested that it could be a cracked coolant line in the transmission? If that's the case do I just drop the transmission and take it in to a transmission shop to have it looked at?

[sierrap615]

yes it a very small crack, hard to see., that part of the head is near the upper radiator hose. and the welded one is bury, it travels from the bottom edge of the valve spring to the far bottom corner of the rocker arm support.(if needed i will upload a highlight photo.
how the engine would run depends on many factiors, where the leak was, how big was the leak, how long the leak was there, that one isn't that big, considering it could be like this - http://files.automotiveforums.com/ga...p?photo=24631&

if the coolant was crossleaking with the ATF, the trans fuild would look like a milkshake, not the engine oil.