OK guys, help me figure this one out.
10-18-2003, 01:33 AM
#1
OK guys, help me figure this one out. The car has been mysteriously consuming coolant. I had one lap day where I pushed the car pretty hard. got it back to the office, let it sit for about 5 hours, restarted it and the low coolant light was on. I figured if I ran it for a minute it would be fine, NOPE. I could smell coolant in the exauhst, but there were no signs of obvious steam out the tail pipe. Nursed it to a gas station, pulled the radiator cap and it was WAY low. Filled it with H2O and got it home without any problems other than the temp moving around more than it ever had. That was Sept. 15th.
I have driven it twice since then and it has sat, unfired for at least 2 weeks. I finally got a chance to pull the intake tonight. Previously I had pulled every single plug looking for a problem there and the only one that showed any difference was cyl. #3. It looked alot leaner than the rest. So tonight I expecting to see some possible coolant in the #3 intake port on the head. NOPE! When I pulled the intake off the #7 intake port was COATED with sludge. Almost like the stuff you would see in the oil pan of a car that hadnt changed its oil in 15K miles. It is also only in the #7 intake track of the intake manifold.........
Any ideas? Possible cracked head? Bad head gasket? Or the worst......bad rings or block?
Help me out here guys, I am at a total loss as to what could be wrong.
I have driven it twice since then and it has sat, unfired for at least 2 weeks. I finally got a chance to pull the intake tonight. Previously I had pulled every single plug looking for a problem there and the only one that showed any difference was cyl. #3. It looked alot leaner than the rest. So tonight I expecting to see some possible coolant in the #3 intake port on the head. NOPE! When I pulled the intake off the #7 intake port was COATED with sludge. Almost like the stuff you would see in the oil pan of a car that hadnt changed its oil in 15K miles. It is also only in the #7 intake track of the intake manifold.........
Any ideas? Possible cracked head? Bad head gasket? Or the worst......bad rings or block?
Help me out here guys, I am at a total loss as to what could be wrong.
10-18-2003, 08:38 AM
#2
10 Second Club
Re: OK guys, help me figure this one out. This very thing just happened to me. Actually it is getting fixed this week. In my case it was the head gasket. I spent 2 weeks racking my head trying to figure out the problem 
. No steam in my exhaust,no coolant in my oil,and no visual dripping or spraying. It turned out to be small crack in my head gasket,just enough to be a pain in my ***, and not show any symptoms other than the smell of coolant when I opened the windows.
anyway good luck.
. No steam in my exhaust,no coolant in my oil,and no visual dripping or spraying. It turned out to be small crack in my head gasket,just enough to be a pain in my ***, and not show any symptoms other than the smell of coolant when I opened the windows.anyway good luck.