Oh... S*%t!!!

[rob_3800seriesII]

ok i have a 98' olds intrigue with a 3800 series II, my coolant was contaminated very badly so i ended up replacing the water pump, thermostat and radiator. but first it over heated a couple times (i NEEDED to drive to work) so i then ended up replacing the head gaskets, head bolts, uim & lim gaskets, exhaust manifold gaskets, put it back together and it started up ran for about 200 miles and the lifters colapsed so i replaced them put it back together and its been running for about 600-700 miles kinda rough though real shaky i thought maybe the strut mounts? and its been blowing out alot of blue (ish) smoke at times. untill yesterday my wife was driving and said it started smoking REAL bad (out of the exhaust) so today i was gonna take it to my fathers to take a look at it at it didnt start it just turned over and then thumped then i tried two more times it just thumped agian. there has been a slightly high consumption of oil and its not leaking out (hence the blue smoke i assumed) and appears to be possibly coolant in the oil (light streaks on dipstick, and white stuff under oil fill cap) so i hope i didnt seize the crank shaft or bearings. could someone please help im getting tire of this car allready, luckily its paid off.

[maxwedge]

First of all the Forum frowns on your header, last time, thanks. Now, what does thump mean, if the engine won't turn like it was seized, it probably is, coolant in the oil, will over time, damage all the bearings. Pull the plugs see if coolant comes out, see if it spins over. I assume you changed the oil after the work was done

[harmankardon35]

Maybe a cylinder is full of coolant and cant turn over? Either that or something went wrong during the work you did..You said the antifreeze was badly contaminated so you changed the water pump??? why??? its just a pump! it doesnt contaminate anything...the worst things a water pump can do is seize up or leak. Chances are, if your antifreeze was contaminated with oil then your oil would have been contaminated with antifreeze (the white gunk under the oil cap basically prooves this) This is bad...glycol tends to wear an engine out very quickly.. Hate to be the bad news guy but i think your motor may just be screwed. I may be wrong but I know what antifreeze does to an engine and it 'aint pretty. If it overheated, you probably have a warped plastic intake manifold allowing coolant to be sucked into the engine (again, you said your wife seen ALOT of smoke....ive seen a few 3800 gm's with a MASSIVE trail of steam behind them and people apperently oblivious to whats happening..It starts off as white smoke but over time it turns blue from antifreeze wearing out your engine)

my

[alejmr]

get the oil out of the engine asap, replace just the UIM, no need to do the gaskets bcs you mentioned you just changed them, you have all the symptoms of a failure of an UIM, it is repairable, you just need to get the oil out of your engine... there's a few procedures of doing that job here in the forum.... good kuck and let us know the outcome your engine is full of coolant that is corrosive and may damage the internal pieces....

[rob_3800seriesII]

ok sorry about the title, and i replaced the water pump because it was cloged with all the crap that was in the coolant like i said it was BAD, it could posibly have been just cleaned and put back on but i just replaced it anyway. ok im gonna go check the cylinders for coolant but first i would like to mention that a friend of mine suggested maybe i threw a connector rod i dont know any symptoms of this or how to diagnose this either, do you think thats a possibility

[rob_3800seriesII]

ok i removed the spark plugs in the front so far fired it up and wallah not only did it crank over but it shot water out of (one) of the cylinders, didnt start though but theres no oil in it so thats good right. plus ther could be some in back cylinders still. so what do you think? uim, valve seals, cracked block? im guessing valve seals since its just one cyl. also whats a good way to flush the coolant out of the crank case and everywhere else? i allready drained it i just left the oil drain plug out so it will continue to drip out is this a bad idea?

[maxwedge]

Valve seals have nothing to do with coolant in the cylinders, cracked head, block, bad head gasket, you cannot not proceed with this engine until you correct the source of the coolant leak. I see you did not repl the UIM, take the throttle body off and look at the passages where the egr and coolant passages run next to each other, see if they are burnt thru or cracked.

[rob_3800seriesII]

ok i removed the throttle body from the uim and yes on the one side the coolant port was broke through to the hole where the EGR runs back into the uim. do i need to replace this, or could i get by with putting some RTV around where the EGR pipe runs up into the uim? i hate to not do things correctly but i bought a S10 pickup for $350 to get back and forth to work, and with the holidays coming up im kind on a tight budget right now. also can i put some penatrating oil through the spark plug holes to get things running smooth again? or should i not worry about this? and how did i get coolant in my oil? are the piston rings bad?

[maxwedge]

Absolute must to replace this, Dorman makes the whole set up with a reinforced area where this happened, about 175.00 with gaskets and such inc. Most parts houses stock them, common issue. The coolant may have damaged the bearings only, time will tell.

[remark123]

What happened is that your Upper Intake Manifold deteriorated and the plastic degraded to the point where the coolant got into the intake, this caused the cylinder(s) to hydrolock, a process that happens when you try to compress a liquid. Check out your basic physics handbook. It has absolutely nothing to do with the rings, pistons, or anything of that nature. Look at it this way, if you filled your cylinders partway with water, the resulting pressure from trying to compress a liquid (water, or in this case coolant), will eventually cause the engine to seize up. This is known as "hydrolock", and the engine exhibits all of the symtoms of an engine that is locked up mechanically, just as it would if it threw a rod, or broke the crankshaft. I hope this helps you to understand what happened. The bottom line is that if you replace the Upper Intake Manifold and all associated gaskets, change plugs, and dry out the engine, change the oil, etc, your car will once again run like it did when it was new! OK?

[rob_3800seriesII]

ok i understand what has happened and have confirmened that theres coolant in the cylinders and how it got there, and so i moved some stuff around in my budget and i think i should be able to go buy a new uim, but i cant help but wonder if i bent the crankshaft or connecting rod when i tried to turn it over and it just THUMPED, and if i did wouldnt it cuase more damage to run it like this?

[remark123]

Not likely that you damaged anything on the low end of the engine, the noise you heard was most likely the pressure blowing out a chunk of the UIM, (it is plastic), and that would make a fairly loud noise. Most of, if not all of the UIM failure I have seen and heard of will lock the engine solid, the weakest link will fail, that would be the wall of the intake manifold, not a solid forged crank or piston! Just my .02 cents worth, take a good look at the UIM, I would put some $ on there being a large piece of it missing around the EGR valve mounting. Jus make sure that you flush out all the coolant and change the oild two or three times after you repair the mainifold. I now have about 120K on mine since the original went, no problems since (knock on wood).

[rob_3800seriesII]

ok thank you every one for your opinions. I just bought a GMC S15 for 350 bucks so i have a ride while i work on the Olds, this way i can take my time and do it right.