Head Gasket Leak
 

Hey everyone I was driving my Alero the other day and it was running warmer than normal so I checked the coolant and the reservoir was dry and I just filled it up the week before. Next I checked the oil and I noticed that it was watery and had an orange tint in the light when it dripped. So it looks to me like I have a coolant leak into my engine. I was wondering if anyone has tried using bars leak or something to stop the leak on an alero with the 3400? My buddy did it on an elderado and it worked great. My car has 156,000 and I don't know if I want to put alot of money into it. So if anyone has experience or opinions using stop leak let me know.

it could be the intake gaskets. my opinion on the stop leak is it could possible work... but dont count on it especially if it is the head gasket. it might never seal up due to the compression from the cylinders blowing in. also. that stuff could clog heater cores. if you really like the car then just put the head gaskets in it. if your not seeing any white smoke out the tail pipe im willing to bet its the LIMGs

If it was an LIMG he wouldn't have coolant in his oil. I say it's definitely a head gasket.

am i thinking of a differnet engine? i thought coolant went through the lower intake.

I'm pretty sure that you can get coolant in your oil with a bad LIM gasket.

Did you inspect for any external coolant leaks? When my LIM gasket went, I could see it leaking externally (that's how I was 100% sure it was the LIM gasket). You have to run the engine while doing the inspection.

If it's the LIM gasket, I doubt stop leak would work, since at least some of the time it's improper bolt torque as well. My old LIM gasket actually looked perfectly fine when I took it out.

All right, maybe you're right about mixing coolant and oil. Check your overflow tank for exhaust gasses, if they're there you have a bad head gasket, if not, you may still have a bad head gasket, but I doubt it.