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what are my options? do i just send it off to the mechanic, or is this something manageable. also is there anything else i could be noticing, at first i was slowly losing coolant little by little and overheating just a little bit, never got into the red. i just went about a mile away to wendys and noticed i was smoking.

Head gasket failures are very rare. You likely lost an UIM or LIM gasket. The engine is saveable if you change the oil now.

http://www.pontiacbonnevilleclub.com/fo ... c3591.html
This is the procedure.

Head gaskets are a fairly high level job, even harder than the LIM teardown, as you need to go further.

Franksdad wrote: and noticed i was smoking.

The smoke was most likely coolant going into the cylinders and being burned giving a white cloud of sweet-smelling smoke.

What is the car doing now that you're refilled the radiator temporarily? If lower intake gasket's leaking you may have hydrolocked cylinders. If it's just the UIM leaking into the air intake stream, you'll have misfiring and white clouds.

But get the oil drained as suggested by RJolly87. You may want to do compression check for head gasket failure. How hot, how long?

Running at 220 for a little bit and there wasn't coolant into the car jus water for the summer

Water is just as bad as coolant as far as hydrolocking, worse for diagnostics because if you're burning coolant, you can usually smell it in the exhaust. You can't smell water...

Yikes. Check the UIM. Takes about 15 minutes to check if it's bad.

Had two of the 3800 non-supercharged motors blow because of UIM leak. It warps because it's plastic (I was told when I got my engine replaced the first time) and they replaced it with a 'plenym'? Not sure if I'm spelling or describing that right. Actually a fairly common problem.. when the engine overheats enough, the UIM warps and lets coolant into the motor. Not a good deal. Hopefully you can still save it!

maroon111993 wrote:Had two of the 3800 non-supercharged motors blow because of UIM leak. It warps because it's plastic (I was told when I got my engine replaced the first time) and they replaced it with a 'plenym'? Not sure if I'm spelling or describing that right. Actually a fairly common problem.. when the engine overheats enough, the UIM warps and lets coolant into the motor. Not a good deal. Hopefully you can still save it!

On the series 2s the common issue was the egr riser melting the oe UIM. The redesigned ones change the 3/4" egr riser to a 5/8", and the apn has a metal sleeve to help absorb the heat of the exhaust gas.

why would you run water without coolant? Coolant changes the boiling point of the water to keep it from boiling and prevents steam in the cooling system... Not a good idea to run pure water on anything but a drag car. 50/50 mix.

I also agree on checking the LIM gaskets.. the new ones are metal rather then plastic and get a NEW upper intake manifold with the revised changes.. GM or Dorman offer then as well as others.. ZZPerformance has a affordable price on the parts.

Also Rockauto has good prices. I just did the tear down and replaced the head gaskets and uim Just take lots of pics and keep the parts separated. It was my 1st time tearing down a 3800 motor. Took me the weekend. Really not that bad.

Make sure if you got it hot and blew a headgasket that you didn't also cook the head. Thought I might be able to get away with just doing a head gasket. Not so, did the old water trick and the rear head had cooked ALL the valves. Not one of them would hold water, so you know what they will be doing during combustion

had my heads checked at Napa before I put my car back together. So what are your plans with the car???

Well I brought the car to the mechanic and he did a compression test and everything was good so it's not a head gasket, today they are taking apart the lim and uim and are probably going to replace those for me, they'll be calling me a little later to let me know. on a side note the car has ran fine, I haven't had any noticeable problems other than the smoke in lifter valley or w/e. Ill keep everyone updated and let you know what happens.

Thank you everyone for your feedback, if they do the lim and uim, is there anything I should do afterwards?

Well I brought the car to the mechanic and he did a compression test and everything was good so it's not a head gasket, today they are taking apart the lim and uim and are probably going to replace those for me, they'll be calling me a little later to let me know. on a side note the car has ran fine, I haven't had any noticeable problems other than the smoke in lifter valley or w/e. Ill keep everyone updated and let you know what happens.

Thank you everyone for your feedback, if they do the lim and uim, is there anything I should do afterwards?

I always like to change the oil twice just to make sure there is no coolant. I change it right away after I'm done with UIM/LIM then I'll go for a nice long test drive or maybe wait a day or two and then change it again. I'll usually leave the drain plug open and poor a quart or two of oil around/through the lifter valley just to make sure to have any coolant out that may have gotten in there.


Might be a little excessive but $20 worth of oil and filter is good insurance, instead of a new engine 3 months from now.

If you plan on keeping the car for a good while, I would recommend using the metal LIM gaskets, and replacing the UIM all together, not just the gaskets. I would also preemptively buy a new coolant elbow. They have the metal ones in the help section for about $10.

Mechanic ended up fixing the gaskets and the elboys also a radiator hose? 420$ later at least I have a car