this is a doozie

[simpleman123]

ok to give a lil background info. grand am gt 6cyl 3300. right before i parked it for a year it overheated severely. after pulling it out of storage it did not overheat at all until almost 6 hrs of straight running. then stored again over winter. now it smokes from what appears to be both manifolds. i say manifolds, they appear in front and back of motor and almost look like they would run to an exhaust pipe. it gets extremely hot over a period of 60 seconds. but my true worry is the overheating. in repair work documents that i got when i bought the car it stated having the same existing problem i have/had now which is radiator fluid in the overfill of a pressurized system spewing out hot and it overheats.almost looks like its going to blow cap off. says they fixed a bad connection to the cooling fan. and it stopped. my question is:: can a exhaust manifold cause overheating/why would the manifold get so hot so quickly...what could cause my car to overheat like this? there is no oil in radiator no rad in oil. could a fan really cause all this overheating? any sort of direction on how to solve this would greatly be appreaciated. i am in dyer need of having this fixed. would mean so much if i could get a lil help thank you so much

[xeroinfinity]

exhaust manifolds cant make the engine overheat unless they hav critters livin in the exhaust, or your Converter is pluged or the exhaust somewhere is pluged.
Smoking manifolds could be due to oil or coolant on them and when it gets hot they evap the fluids causing them to smoke.

A bad thermostat, bad waterpump, blown head gaskets or intake gaskets can also cause overheating, even though you dont hav coolant in the oil, or oil in the coolant those gaskets could be bad.
Also not having proper coolant mix can cause overheating.

The fans dont even come on till the engines at 220+degrees, theoreticly the engine should run and never use the fans if everthings flowing/working properly.

Good Hunting and Welcome to AF!

[richtazz]

Sure sounds like a plugged cat or blown head gasket. A blown head gasket will cause excessive pressure in the cooling system, but will not always get oil/antifreeze mixing. A plugged cat will cause the manifolds to get red hot, but will normally take longer than 60 seconds.

[gmack221]

Do a compression test on every cylinder, that will tell you if you have a bad head gasket or cracked head & which cylinder it is. Might not be the case, but its always nice to know what your looking at.

Either way there is something that caused your car to overheat (thermostat or water pump), start by looking at the bottom of the water pump to see if you can find any coolant stains (there is a hole under where the shaft comes out, probably find the stains there) and the stains will be whatever color your coolant is (red if you still have the factory stuff in). When you replace the thermostat use a dealer thermostat (it will save you headaches in the future).

If its a plugged cat after you run it the catalitic converter will be red (easier to see at night). When my cat went bad the motor had no power, and the cat glowed after 2 mins of running. A piece of my cat came loose and plugged the resinator pipe (bigger piece of pipe behind the cat). if its a cat make sure this pipe is clear before you button it back up.

good luck and keep us updated.