so I am sitting at 131,000 miles and my gauge cluster is fubar...

my rear valve cover gasket is spitting oil....

my blower motor makes weird vibrating noises at higher speed settings

worst of all my heat recently went out... other then thermostat any ideas? Heater core is good and everynow and then it warms up and gives me heat...

Also does anyone have a clue where the thermostat is and how to get to it? Someone told me I had to remove the air filter housing, but even after that I can not locate a definate place that the thermostate would be ,,,

Oh and 9 months ago I was leaking coolant into cylinder 7..... I bought the 3 step bar'* leaks product and it solved the problem..... WOuld have been too much time and money to pull the engine and replace the head gasket, anyone else had that problem?

Anyone know of a good universal cat for this model? Mine is out and I really do not feel like replacing everything from the block back... gm screwed us on that little nugget....

Thanks,
Rich

Rear Valve cover !! I have the same issue but it is not spewing.
I haven't heard of to many Head Gaskets going.
The Heat issue might be caused by the Bars Leak.

Just get a walker HighFlow cat and thats an issue solved

The Thermostat is on the drivers side front of the motor, if it wernt -30 outside I would go open mine up and grab a pic for you

Welcome to the Forum Rallton! If you dont mind, post an introduction of yourself in the New Members section. Glad to have you.

so drivers side I knew, but where? At the end of the long Hose, or the fat little 6 inch hose? How long in this lovely cold will it take me to replace it?

On the Bars leak care to elaborate? I had heat in March after we did the job, took us like three hours to do all the flushing and idling etc...... I didn't just buy the cheap one and drop it in...

My brother n law and I figue the current lack of heat is due to a stuck thermo.....

On our common valve cover gasket issue I have found that with conventional oil it leaks more then with synthetic... I have run lucas through the engine a few times and it slows down the leak for short periods of time.

All Data specs the labor out at 4.5 hours for the gasket. My brother in law who is a wrencher is too lazy to give me 5 hours of free labor and help me do it, so it goes unrepaired....

Don't go taking any pictures in this weather.... I should have the diagram tomorrow from all data....

last car I put Bars into was a century 3.1 it had heat for a while till what was left of the bars leak clogged the heater core...

When the motor is warmed up squeeze the upper hose..


How is the coolant level?

coolant level when the engine is hot is full in the hose, and lower hose is hot too....

if the bars stop leak that was used was the kind with the little pellets in it thats more than likely got something plugged up..those pellets are pellets of an african tree root....

the coventinal oil vs synthetic leak variant is odd as synthetic is thinner so it can usually slide past gaskets aka leak

and ive had many a northstar brought to me with leaking coolant and no heat with bad head gaskets..in my personal experince ive seen that when northstarts get overheated they pop a head gasket

your thermostat anyways should be right in here under the housing at the end of the hose ..btw welcome to the forum feel free to make an intro thread

just saw this is the upper and lower hose both hot at the same time...i reccomend pressure testing the coolant system

at the end of the upper hose.. cool, do I really need to take the air cleaner assembly off to change it?

the bars I bought and used is the kit http://barsleaksdifm.com/hg3.htm you can view at this link...

no pellets etc... Had to discconnect the heater core, and drain cooolant before use... then had to idle engine with water and bottle one for like 40 minutes, then flush and use bottle two and let it idle for almost an hour, and then bottle three etc.... when the water was clear coming out after three hours we put coolant back in, reconnected the core, and it worked... didnt think it would since it was leaking into the cylinder and not down the block......

I spoke with several gm mechanics before using the bars leaks product above on Northstar, and they said that it works, would save me a ton of money, and they also mentioned that a northstar never goes back together the way it comes apart and never runs right after being taken apart....
took my chances to save thousands.... but followed Bars insructions to a T.......

Sounds like your thoughts are that the core might be clogged.... How can I check this?

cap issue? going bad?