Losing coolant
 

Car in question is a 1999 with 25,150 miles on it, and all original except for the battery, serpentine belt, and it's had some oil changes. Besides the LIMG and overflow coolant tank, given the age and mileage on it, is there any particular places I should look? This is a backup car that I don't even keep at my house (I live in the city) but so far I haven't noticed leaving any coolant anywhere. I am suspicious of the cooling reservoir because the some dampness I saw running along a seam below it. Dipstick looked OK, but it was getting dark at the time i checked it. There was some crud on the oil filler cap, almost looked like I had mixed oil and corn starch, or something. I can't quantify the leakage rate since I rarely drive the car. What coolant I can see looks fine. The car runs perfectly, but if I'm not supposed to drive it in case it has LIMG, then I won't except to move it around the yard. Any advice?

It's definately the LIMG gasket. I ran it and watched the coolant slowly leak out from the engine at the gasket location.

http://grandamgt.com/forum/showthread.php?t=68087
That will help you out. There are somethings that I do different than angrysk8r did.

When draining the coolant it is easyer to just pull the lower radiator hose off then mess with the drain rooster.

When your pulling the upper intake you can leave the throttle body on the upper intake. Just pull the two coolant hose off the throttle body.

The coolant tube that comes out of the back of the t stat hosing doesn't need to be pulled out. Disconnect the rubber hose from it and remove the 13mm nut that holds the tube to the rear head.

Get a block of wood and a jack and put it under the oil pan. Lift it up just a little and take the passanger side motor mount out. That way you can get to the 3 bolts that hold the power steering pump on with out the use of a swivel. Once the power steering pump is off just set it up on the strut tower. You don't need to take the lines off.

Don't mess with the rocker arm till you have the lower intake manifold off. Then use the tool to lift the rocker arm up and pull the push rods out. Make sure you don't mix up the push rods. I would put 12 holes in a box and lable the box front and rear. That way the push rods go back in the same place they came from.

Am I going to need crow's feet to do this?

no

You dont really have to lift the engine up a little and remove the motor mount. You can get to the bolts but you cant really use a long extension to remove the power steering pump. You will need a swivel 10mm shallow socket to get the 4 corner bolts off and also back on. You could use a wrench using the 12 point side and put a bigger wrench over the other end of the 10mm wrench to lock into the 10mm wrench to help remove the bolt.

Whatever you do DONT mix up the pushrods. It will cause my headaches then it is worth. The intake pushrods are the short ones and the exhaust are the longer ones. If for some reason you mix them up you can follow the port that is directly behind the pushrod location. It should be E I E I I E in the rear of the engine E I I E I E in the front.

Depending on how long it was leaking and if any coolant was lost (can't locate from where though) it is recommended to remove the heads and get them checked. It would save the hassle of having to do the whole thing over again.




Whats needed
10mm for intake bolts
13mm or 1/2" depending if you decide to remove throttle body or not.
9/32" for map sensor
5/8" alternator mounting bracket
needle nose pliers
8mm or 5/16" for coolant return line / battery and such.
MAGNET for when you drop bolts lol
13mm or 14mm to remove coil packs.
Patience putting it back together so you don't mess up the order of pushrods or break a sensor.

Stupid question:

Do the pushrods have to go back in the exact same place? Or is a long one a long one and s short one a short one and they are interchangable as long as you use the right size.

That isnt a stupid question. It is preferred to keep them in the same location. It wouldnt really hurt though if it didnt put the pushrods in the same spot. If lifters were removed they would have to go in the exact same spot because of how the cam wears into the bottom of the lifters.

I also have a question about the usage of the U-joint thing for the power steering pump bolt removal. It's unclear as to if I even need that or will a regular swivel head ratchet work?

you should check the coolant hoses that run into the throttle body for leaks. mine were leaking on my 3.4 i went ahead and capped them off since it never ever freezes here anyway.

You are referring to those small metal hoses, right? Mine ae not leaking, but they do look all rusty.

OK, so you are saying to use this:



As opposed to using a universal swivel adapter and a regular socket:






The total amount of coolant lost is roughly equivalent to filling up the reservior twice. From what I can tell from reading on the internet, I'm catching this early.

Are you referring to these hoses: Should I be concerned about the rust?

This is where it is leaking from, which I think is the LIMG gasket:

Thats the side of it.

The flat parts in the valley get just silicone.

Use the good gasket set to.

I was showing the side of it because that's where I can see it leaking from. It's probably leaking from other places too.

In so far as the gasket set, I got the FelPro set along with the bolts. I suspect that I still need the EGR gasket though.

More questions:
Do I need to drain the oil to complete this job? I am not necessarily convinced that my oil has been compromised yet, and I really just want to get the car running first, then change the oil. Is this OK, or will oil spill all over the place if I don't drain it first?

Is this something I can do a little at a time every day after work, of should I try to do it all over a weekend? Or does that even matter? Seems to me that a nice after work type of thing for day 1 might consist of only draining the coolant and removing the splash shield. The Alero isn't my only car so I can use my daily driver car to get to work, etc.

Yeah, I'm finally getting around to doing this, I just put the car into a garage on Sunday afternoon.

ya thats what usually goes bad is the RTV on the side there and on the other side

Why does the throttle body have cooling lines going to it?

To cool it down, duhhhhhhha. :jk:

Because of the EGR being right there, it needs cooling.

Exactly how do I remove those two bolts on the back coil pack plate? They are under a wiring harness piece, and even when I undo the two clips that hold it in, that doesn't seem to help.

If it matters it's 13mm, not 14mm on these two bolts. By putting my arm around the alternator, I got the one close to that. It's the one on the drivers side that's giving me the most trouble (although both of these are terrible to get to).