DropTopBird

iTrader: (17)

Didn't read through everything, but if the coolant has never been changed someone might have mixed dexcool types. When i got my bird the coolant was all junky and I thought I popped a head gasket but it turned out that when the PO topped off the fluids before I picked it up he mixed coolant types and it clotted (for lack of a better term). Try a coolant flush first before you get into something like the head gasket. Also, if you're going to be in there taking the heads off why don't you pick up a better set to put on afterwords.

Edit: finished everything and it sounds like all 3 of the fluids are mixing. What did your oil look like last time you changed it?

02*C5

iTrader: (1)

You will see that most places you take your car to will try to get thousands of dollars off of you when it is a simple thing to do. That's why you need to learn to work on your own car.

When you flush the coolant make sure that your top and bottom hose are off the block. Make sure to run water until its looks clear coming out of the bottom of the block. The run it some more just to make sure.

If you see chunks of that orange **** coming out of your block keep flushing until you see NO MORE chunks.


Make sure to run lots of water through your radiator. Reason being if you have that chunky **** on your cap it is all over the inside of your radiator. I am sure that you are in for a new radiator IMHO.

So this does not happen again fill you tank up with distilled water and 2 bottles of Water Wetter your car will run cooler and you won't have to worry about mixing coolants.

Kevin01Z28

iTrader: (8)

Ok ****!! You let your car peg the temp gauge more than once and never thought to pull over and see what the **** is going on??? C'mon dude! I would say you probably do have at a minimum a blown or leaking head gasket. Cast iron is a little more forgiving than aluminum with heat. My brother let my old 90 model truck with a tbi 350 get to about 230 or 240 and it caused a head gasket to leak. Pulled the heads and had them checked for cracks and resurfaced and no problems after that.

Im guessing you have a ps cooler since your radiator fluid and ps fluid are milky. Thats one problem. You need to flush the **** out of cooling system with your heater on till EVERYTHING is clear. When you refill use the green coolant and not dexcool. Having ps ,at, or oil run through your cooling system for any length of time will begin to deteriorate your coolant hoses.

As for the number 8 plug its easist to remove the coil packs imo. A little maintenace goes a long way...

streetassasin

iTrader: (30)

no its not, imo its easier to just pull the coil pack bracket and do them all from the top, but I always put the wire on the #8 plug from the bottom

lemons12

iTrader: (71)

Packs off and sit on top of the battery..

99SSAGUI

iTrader: (7)

Listen to the people here, if you car is stock you need to replace your PS Cooler if you don't know what that is look it up or ask. Don't mess with anything else until you check the PS Cooler first, if it is broke it will make your Radiator fluid look like milk and with oil and also look at your PS fluid, because if it is the PS cooler you will have Radiator fluid on your PS reservoir. Let us know once you check that PS Cooler, I can almost bet money that that is what it is.
Good luck

cyberkill

Thanks everyone for all the replies, I really appreciate the help!

As for the overheating thing...yeah it was stupid...but in my defense, it spent more than half of the time at normal operating temperature in that 30 minute drive home. I was in traffic on a local road about 6 miles from home...so I was just like "c'mon please o please just make it!" In any case, I don't argue that that was dumb.

Hopefully I'll have time today to check the power steering cooler, but if not, then probably tomorrow. For now, though, I have this bad picture of inside the PS reservoir. I guess the only thing you can see, other than that it's low, is that it's not milky.

It's not in the pic, but I dipped a paper towel in the fluid, and it came out a little discolored (lighter than brand new oil), but it wasn't milky. Even though it wasn't, could it still be the PS Cooler? My guess is that there's more pressure in the PS than there is in the cooling system, plus the milky stuff has gotta be thicker, so it could just mean that the stuff is just leaking one way?

http://home.comcast.net/~cyberkill51/psfluid.jpg

Johnnystock

iTrader: (6)

Yeah, unbolting the coil makes life lot easier for spark plugs maintenance! First time out OP, it took me 2.5 hours!! now I can do this in 30mins! Just one shorter spark plug box and some tricky ratchet accessories/extension to do it faster.

100% sure its your PS cooler a part of the problem. Happened to me and it took out my rad cap too. So I would leak some coolant when WOT by the coolant reserve. The car would be low on coolant after. When youre low on coolant, its tough to stay cool when at a complete stop, but when you rev the engine, the water pump spin faster and it can still manage to cool down the engine a bit(thats why the coolant temp was going high and low in the traffic).

Changing the coolant is another part of the solution, you have to!! Flush the whole system 2-3times til clear water gets out of there!

Be sure to flush your PS fluid before you need a new PS pump(happened to me). Theres a good thread on this subject by the way. Very common problem. I was on a tight budget at this time and I blocked off the system by cutting the hose going to the PS reservoir and did a loop on each side.

Your spark plugs are fucked up man!!! Mines are getting fouled are 5-7K or so but I'm running rich with H/C/I/E/N2O. On a mildly modded car, I would change em every 10-12K miles depending on the needs. TR55 gapped properly vpower.

Just pull the wires off hard; I broke 2 doing so after 2year(10Kmiles) and I think that if they are meant to break easy like that, they were due for changing. They were LS6 GMPP wires, going back to MSD now...

About the oil consumption, its another story. You just might have a small leak anywhere. As long as you top it from time to time to keep the level as recommended. I have this problem too but its a leak from valve cover and oil pan gasket. just adding oil every 2 weeks because I'm lazy to do the job

Good luck and give for love to this beast!!!!!!!!!!! And never drive the car with high temp problems!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PULL OVER!!!!!!!!!!!1

cyberkill

Thanks for the reply!

I just drained the coolant from the radiator...I'll post pics of that in a bit. There's a real good pic of what the separation of the crud and the coolant looks like. The majority is nice clear orange dexcool, but then there's the milky stuff on top. More on that later...

How would I know if my PS is already f'd up? Reason I ask is because right around the same time I noticed my coolant looking milky, I was losing a full reservoir's worth of PS Fluid every week or even sooner!

Also...
Judging by the oil on the threads of half the plugs, is that a sign of something that needs to be replaced (i.e. head gasket or piston rings, etc), or is that just normal "OMFG you've never changed spark plugs in 90k miles?!"?

cyberkill

This is what the coolant looks like out of the radiator. I'm pouring it into a bottle for disposal. You can disregard the black oil spots, because this tub has been used to drain oil before.


This is in a bottle, you can see the separation:


Lastly...I disconnected the PS Cooler. I think I've figured out how this PS cooler works. If I've observed this right, PS Fluid runs through the small nozzles while coolant flows through the main tube, right? Now, my last question still stands, how do I tell it's broken? Obviously, I got the milky stuff flowing out of the main tube when I disconnected it, since that stuff was in my cooling system, but out of the small nozzles came out what looked like pretty clean PS fluid. I mean, it was slightly discolored (lighter than fresh synthetic oil) but wasn't milky or anything. You can kind of see the color in the rags:


After I took it out, I blew into one of the small nozzles and covered the other one to see if there was maybe a large crack inside, but it was fine. I'm guessing the PS system is pushing a much higher PSI than my lungs, though.

Can PS cooler still be the culprit?

cyberkill

Just to reiterate, ever since that one incident in 2004 or so, I've never had an overheating problem before or after.

I discovered the milky coolant in September 09 and it was clear 'n' orange in July 09, so even if it turned milky the day after I changed my oil, throughout the summer, on hot days in traffic, etc, I didn't have the tiniest bit of overheating problems.

I bring this up because after emptying my radiator, I was surprised to see that all of the coolant wasn't milky, just about 1/4 or 1/3 of it. And whatever it is, the milky stuff naturally floats at the top, so whenever I pull the radiator cap, it's milky, but it's still the clear orange dex flowing through the system. Seeing as I've never flushed my coolant, so some of that coolant in there could be as old as 2001, is it possible for only some of the coolant to turn milky like that?

Also, I'm thinking of checking my transmission fluid next. PS Fluid was clear to begin with, PS Cooler didn't seem to leak. Engine Oil's clean too. I guess ATF's the last resort.

Oh, and let's just say I find something in the ATF...would it be fixable...by me?

cyberkill

Sorry if this is another noob question, but I have a manual transmission...does that get cooled by engine coolant too?

bonestock99

iTrader: (1)

Nope.

cyberkill

lol...wish i read that 5 minutes ago...just drained the tranny fluid...oh well, it needed to be done anyway

It's late now, so I probably have to call tomorrow, but by any chance does anyone know if I could take my PS Cooler to like CarX or some mechanic to do a pressure test on the PS Fluid nozzles? Does anyone know what kind of PSI would be running through the PS lines through the cooler?

edit: I think I found it, does this match up with what everyone knows?

LS1
10.2/11.7 LPM or 2.7/3.1 GPM
1200/1300 PSI

BLKSSLTT

iTrader: (10)

you would be looking at a new radiator my friend. happened to my buddy. anti freeze and atf were mixed in both his tranny and his radiator.

Johnnystock

iTrader: (6)

Q; is there a floating brownish liquid on top of your PS reservoir? if a yes, its your problem.

...and you told you were loosing a full reservoir of PS per week, seems obvious it was going into your rad.

Your PS pump is gone if youre having hard time turning steering wheel.

cyberkill

Yup. The same milky stuff you see in those pictures is what is all over the dipstick in the coolant reservoir. It was never hard to turn the steering wheel, it would just whine a lot, but as long as I kept it topped off it was fine...but I was having to fill it so often.

By the way, if i took some of the clear dexcool in a glass and added some power steering fluid in it, would it turn the same color/consistency as the milky stuff or does it only do that under pressure?

youguessit

go to advance auto parts and buy blue devil for like 60 bucks... works or your money back.

00Silv4.8

iTrader: (10)

Im not 100% sure about the cars but if the PS cooler is in the radiator, your gonna need a new radiator. Its common with the trans coolers on autos, if they go out your in for a rad and trans, obviously this isnt a trans but it would look like your gonna need PS cooler and pump and a rad. Sucks man but it looks like it

also you said your oil was never milky or real liquidy?

Ground Shakers

The milkyness comes from the oil being circulated through the coolent system (The block, waterpump and radiator), so just mixing it in bottle may not have the same affect.

It seems pretty obvious that if you were not seeing puddles of PS fluid underneath the car and you were losing a whole reservoir a weeks worth of fluid then the only place it could have gone was into your coolant. Replace the PS steering cooler, flush your coolant system and problem is solved.