Went to Louie's house to go to The Met game. Along the way, I thought how great the car was running despite the heat. Was to go from the ball game to the beer hall in Albany then to Joey's place upstate for the rest of the weekend.

One block from Louie's house, the car starts running bad.

The Mets lose. I take Louie home.

Checked all fuses, plugs, did a spark check, one coil on each side. Found nothing wrong.

Still runs like poop. Went to JFK at 4PM to see Joey at the auto shop where they have a scanner. Cylinder 5 no fire. Plugged in test spark plug to number 5 coil, no spark. I leave. Buy new coil. Go home. Install.

Runs great. All is well again. Zoom! Finally on the way to Albany-4 hours late.

Stuck in traffic on the way to the GWB. Overheats. Radiator hose pops off the radiator. Damn plastic radiator, the barb on the plastic hose nipple sheared clean off. Now the nipple is a smooth tube.

Drive two miles to a grocery store in Harlem. Along the way, the temp gauge is pegged because the radiator is dry. Also along the way, the engine starts to run REAL bad.

One hour to get the radiator & engine to hold three gallons of distilled water. Finally, the temp is under control. I cap it, I head for home.

The engine still runs REAL bad. I figure it's water in some plug, it'll dry out.

It does not.

The engine won't rev up. It vibrates badly.

I conclude the two catalytic converters are melted solid.

I chug all the way home at 35 miles per hour. All along the way, the engine temperature gauge is reading good-like 190 degrees. On the Clearview Expressway, the carpet starts smoking. Not a lot but this can't be good.

This confirms the cats are fused.

I make it to my house, run out the water hose, flush the undercarriage. Steam billows.

Joey's picking me up tomorrow. The car will sit until next week.

I have no wheels.

 

This....can't.....be......serious

 

Yeah man, I'm being tested. Maybe it's time to give up on The Mets?

Looking at radiators & headers/Y-Pipes just now.... I have that nice shiny new Magnaflow cat-back still sitting in my shop so that's a plus to all this.

 

Stop looking at radiators and headers and start looking at shortblocks.

 

No damage to the short block. It idles fine, no banging, no knocking oil looks good, no coolant in it, proper level..

Come on man, think positive!

 

wow I am kinda speechless. It seems like he had a Weds. motor. In know mine would have taken a **** as soon as the nipple popped off

add: mets= poop\

Bummer your TA isnt a 2000-20002 there is a GM bulliten for replacing the convertors 10yrs/120k miles I found it today while I was working on a TA

 

Doubt it. You drove 2 miles with NO COOLANT, besides being a move I'd only imagine a woman doing, it's pretty much death to that LS1. Do you have any idea how quickly it heats up without any coolant in there?

 

Yep, it heats up pretty quick. I did assume the worst but the motor seemed to have survived.

Regardless if it needs a block, I'd still need the exhaust stuff and radiator.

 

I don't mean to laugh at your misfortune, but that part was funny.

 

It was funny! I've never even heard of that before.

I was having a pretty bad day. Sometimes we gotta sit back and just say, it coulda been worse and hope for the best in the end.

 

Not much common sense in your original post. Driving without coolant for miles, driving when you know the cats are toasted. Check your muffler bearings too they may have melted, i have a 4 pack in the classifieds if your interested.

 

Yep and the dealers honor it, that was the only time I'll probably be able to take my car to the dealership and have them do a diagnostic scan and fix the problem for absolutely nothing but my signature.

 

LOL I have a pack of muffler bearings in the shop, I stocked up at an Auto Zone sale.

Looks like I'm simply gonna get the Dynomax/Walker off-road Y-Pipe with no cats and the BeCool radiator.

When I can more afford it, I'll get proper headers and a catted Y-Pipe. I'm hoping the soon to be released Texas Speed stuff is reasonable.

 

dont want a LT1 rad?

 

mets lost to cards? oh thats right,hey you guys can keep izzy for a closer. he's to much drama for me. you guys bail him out with double plays like the cards did. hey sjsingle1 whats this about an lt1 radiator please elaborate!!

 

The LT1 radiator has a little more capacity than the LS1.

 

one of my cats clogged. im going to have them hollowed out. **** em.


but man that really sucks. about your car not the mets since they suck.


im a mets fan. for a long time and they just keep embarrassing me.

 

LT1 is the way to go! btw ^^^^ i'm an orioles fan and they've sucked for the longest time so i feel your pain lol

 

I'm never disappointed by The Mets because I EXPECT them to lose. This way, it's a nice surprise when they win. It'd be nice if they won when I was sitting in Citi Field tho. Dem bums. It's not easy being a Mets fans, all 12 of us LOL.

Go backwards to an LT1?? An LT1 surely would've blown BOTH head gaskets under the circumstances.

Over the years, I've lost two transmissions because the stock in-the-radiator transmission cooler went bad allowing coolant into the transmission. A situation that isn't noticed until the transmission starts acting up, and it's too late.

Now this problem caused by the barb section of the plastic radiator shearing off causing the hose to pop off.

I didn't care for stock radiators because of the transmission coolers before this. Now I REALLY hate stock plastic radiators with integrated trans coolers.

I'm back from my weekend at Joey's and the car is in the shop. The oil still looks good, it's not even dark and there's zero coolant in the crankcase. Today, I'll jack it onto the 12x12x12 blocks I have. Tomorrow, I'll yank out the y-pipe and cats and see how it runs.

 

Here's the update:

Got the cats/y-pipe off the car. ONLY snapped the three manifold studs on the left side, the three on the right side are intact with good threads.

The engine, with open exhaust manifolds ONLY still runs really bad.

Alright. I'm standing there thinking, hole in a piston? dropped/bent valve? bent pushrod?

Can't be, nothing points to any of those scenarios.

Lets flash back to Tuesday, one day before this all happened. I was stuck in NYC traffic. Hot as hell. The car was running very hot but not in the red. I eventually got to my destination and the car cooled off. The very next day, one ignition coil goes bad.

Back to today. I'm standing there mentally eliminating what it could be in my mind. I decide to do an ignition coil check of every coil. BINGO. Coils 3, 4, 5 and 6 are all bad.

Four ignition coils bad due to high underhood temperatures.

These are the higher output truck coils with the heat sinks. I've been using these coils since May 2009 without issues. I've never had the engine get as hot as it did last week. Apparently, these coils die when they get that hot.

What's on the list:
-4 new coils;
-drilling out the busted studs;
-Dynomax/Walker off-road stock y-pipe;
-BeCool aluminum radiator;
-Earls plate transmission cooler from the '94 I had;
-an oil change.