Help!!...Water in oil/oil pan and no coolant in radiator
 

I have a 98 Bonneville Se with 76K miles. When I was driving, the CHECK GAGES light went on and a warning chime sounded. My Engine Coolant Temperature Gage needle was approaching the 'red' area on the dial. I pulled off and checked my radiator and there was nothing in it! There are no external leaks for the radiator fluid to leak out. I checked my oil and it seems it is watered down. Also, where I pour the oil into the engine it seems some water has collected there as well. So it seems I have no water/coolant in the radiator, no external leaks for the water/coolant to get out, and water in the oil/oil pan. Can you please direct me to what the problems may be here.

Classic case of the upper intake manifold failure. Your lower intake gaskets are probably pretty bad too.

You need to drain your oil ASAP. The coolant will eat away at the bearings. Get it out of there.

Then, move on to replacing the upper intake manifold and lower intake gaskets. If you're somewhat mechanically inclined, it's not a tough job with a Chilton's. I would only recommend doing it yourself, though, if you have a Chilton's and the proper tools.

There is TONS of information about this in Tech Info. There are also some detailed pictures for this common L36 problem. I would also recommend installing a 180 degree stat as a preventative maintenance so this doesn't happen as quickly in the future.

Thanks for your quick response. I will read-up on this and see what I find!

New manifold is $139 @ Autozone and they stock them. Comes with the gaskets too.

Jay

Lower intake gasket set is NOT available at AutoZone. I had to get mine at Advance. They cost me about $30. Get some fresh RTV too for the lower gaskets.

Thanks a bunch for the help!

:) -just a couple of notes from another person who has "been there, done that:"

Echoing what Vital49 has already said, I think he means the RTV to be used only at the four corners of the lower intake manifold gaskets. (-you'll see where the factory original dobs of RTV are currently.) -(I used FelPro gaskets through CarQuest, don't know if they are any better than the GM Dealer gaskets, but did look slightly different)

And, I would have stated, "classic case of LOWER gasket failure." The failure of the upper manifold, with the EGR stove pipe melting into the coolant passages will be discovered as a slow disappearance of coolant. AT ANY RATE, "tverhein" be sure to read the tech info about this. My bet is that your lower gaskets have definitely failed. -be sure to post a reply to this topic, so as to let us all know what you found.

Also, if you replace the upper (plastic) manifold, I STRONGLY suggest you consider doing something to get the exhaust heat away from that plastic, otherwise you will be melting the new part too.

For what it's worth, I experienced both failures, on my bonneville, a 1999 with right around 99k miles. - a car that had been well cared for too.

Also, echoing Vital49, coolant in the engine oil can mean certain death of the engine. -especially the crankshaft bearings. As a good measure, I replaced all the connecting rod bearings. They definitely showed coolant damage. (I would have replaced the main bearings too, but you can't do that with the engine in the car.) For a decent mechanic, dropping the oil pan, and replacing rod bearings on these engines is a pretty easy job. (for the average weekend do-it-yourself type, hmmmm,,, I'm not sure). Whatever you decide, do things carefully and "by the book."

57chevythunder, thanks for your comments.

A friend of mine and I will attempt this repair starting this evening. From our research on this board and elsewhere, we are going 'into this' with the following plan:
1. Replace the upper intake manifold and gasket.
2. Replace the lower manifold gasket
3. Replace the termostat with a 180 degree thermostat
4. Replace the PCV valve
5. New oil and filter
6. New coolant

We will see what we find as we get into it tonight. A few things I am unclear about as we move forward based on the posts I have read in these forums and maybe someone could explain them here:
1. What is the EGR stove pipe, or lower intake stovepipe, and does it need to be replaced?
2. If we replace the upper intake manifold, what specifically do we do to get the exhaust heat away from that plastic so we wont melt the new part too?
3. Do we replace the lower manifold gasket only or should we replace the lower manifold and gasket like we are doing with the upper intake manifold and gasket?

EGR (aka lower intake stove pipe) pipe:

http://www.thejmfc.com/temp/img_0931.jpg

pic of it haning out in my upper intake...

http://www.thejmfc.com/temp/egrsmall.jpg

you'll notice that your lower intake is a nice aluminum piece - no composite there. no need to replace. just take your time in cleaning up the mating surfaces, to avoid any scratches or pits.

shame you need this fixed now, because w/in a month or two, i'll hopefully have a procedure down for swapping on the manifold from the L26 (series III 3800) - it's aluminum :) no more need to worry about leaks :)

One other thing I would recommend is to change the oil after 50-100 miles of driving on the fresh intake, coolant, oil, etc. That way, you're sure to completely remove any remaining coolant that didn't come out with the original oil change.

57Chevy...Thank you...yes, I was referring to the 4 corners of the lower intake! :wink:

As for your question about disapating the heat. There's a company that sells a sleeve kit to keep the heat away from the plastic. You can learn more here:

http://ken-co.com/manifold/default.htm

I, for one, didn't have success with the product. The sleeve was too large, so I reassembeled everything without the sleeve. I'm sure in another 80,000 miles I'll have to replace my lower gaskets again anyway. I know 57Chevy had success using the sleeve kit, though.

Good luck! :wink:

Thanks to all who have contributed to this post thus far....We will let you know how things are going!

To anyone thinking about removing the lower intake manifold to put in new gaskets: I recently took mine off, and the aluminum intake had quite a bit of corrosion around the water coolant passages. Enough so I was afraid that the gasket might not seal it completely. The GM gasket that I used only has small raised silicone rings that make the seal. If they happened to land in the wrong place, I could be in trouble.

So I added additional rings of silicone sealant on the inside edge of where the gasket seals. More specifically, I added the silicone right onto the gasket itself, inboard of the raised silicone rib. So this might be a case when you put silicone on areas other than on the "end seals".


Did it work? I don't know yet, I am just finishing up the job.

My friend and I just finished removing the upper intake manifold and the lower manifold. We know what our next steps are, however, we don't know what everyone is referring to in these posts as the 'EGR Stove Pipe'. We have a Chiltons manual and GM docs on this topic, but we don't know what the 'EGR Stove Pipe' is. Can someone explain please!

:) Thanks Vital49 for including the note on the oil changes too ! (I even used Seafoam too, on the first fresh oil, and then changed after very few miles.)

Also I spent a LOT of time thoroughly cleaning the cooling system, including ultra-sonic cleaning of the radiator. (came out looking brand new).

Say, tverhein, Mkaake responded with excellent photos of the stove pipe.

Mkaake, WOW :D way to go working on the Series III manifold conversion :D :!: There are a LOT OF US anxious to get the details. (we know you will post)

-and excellent advice from jr's3800 on going to "tech info" to read the details on what SO MANY PEOPLE :shock: have already been through. -lots of good stuff :wink: to be learned there. -highly recommend checking it out.

-and yes, I did have good luck using the "ken-co" kit. -I'd recommend looking at the photos and description of the kit, on the ken-co industries website. (granted, more expensive than it needs to be, but I think it was well worth the extra cost for the insurance.)

Good Luck :) , and we all will "stay tuned" and offer what help we can.

yeah, i've been working non-stop on this for a while, trying to work out the finer details of how the adaptor would all fit together.

the idea is we are able to retain our stock TB's - right now there's an adaptor on the market, but it requires changing out the TB, which I didn't like (i'm cheap). this may actually end up being as cheap or cheaper than replacing a composite upper, depending on how much it's going to cost to get our adaptor's made... so stay tuned :twisted:

<edit>

teaser pics removed for now :)

OKay...here is where we are at after two evenings of work:

We replaced the lower intake gasket, the upper intake manifold and gasket, the thermostat with a 180 degree model, the spark plugs, the oil, and the coolant. We have a few connections to finish tonight, then we will 'turn her over'. A couple of things we found:

1. It seems the root cause of the problem I am experiencing is due to 'damaged & destroyed' lower intake gaskets. Sorry I don't have pictures, but they looked pretty bad. The lower intake manifold was flooded with coolant and water, so we had a mess to clean up. After we took the sparkplugs out, we hand cranked the engine to work the water and coolant out.
The upper was all 'gummed up' as well. The upper was replaced with a new part while I cleaned the lower with a tootbrush, razorblade, and brake cleaner and got it to be pretty clean.

2. We found a discrepancy on the 'torque specs' for the upper intake manifold between Chiltons and GM. We went with Chiltons because GM's seemed 'way too tight'.

3. We couldnt get a 'washer/gasket' to fit from the old PCV to the new, so we left it off thinking it the new PCV re-designed.

4. We put a quart of 'ATF' transmission fluid in with our new oil to help cleanse the engine and parts. Tonight we will fire it up, let it run a bit while we are checking things, drive it a few miles, then change the oil again.

Will update this board on our final endeavors. If anyone wants details on anything we have done, just post a question.

Wish us luck tonight!

Sorry folks...I have a few corrections to my previous post.

1. We also changed the PCV valve.

2. Yes, we did find a discrepancy between Chilton's & GM's torque specs for the upper intake. Chilton recommended 89 inch pounds, while GM recommended 11 lb foot. We went with GMs recommendation and not Chiltons as I previously reported.

I read a post recently where a 'Stant spring loaded radiator cap' was installed. Can someone explain the value of this cap relative to the factory installed cap?

Thanks to everyone who has responded to this post and to this board in general. This information has been a tremendous boost to effectively diagnosing and correcting problems ourselves.

i've only ever heard the spec of 89 inch pounds... 11 foot pounds is what, 132 inch pounds... eh~ i'm sure it'll work.

i'm pretty sure that any radiator cap is spring loaded - that's how most systems work. the rad cap acts as a little gateway between the radiator and the overflow. when the fluid in the radiator heats up, it expands, and needs somewhere to go. the pressure works against the spring, allowing it to pass into a neck that goes to the overflow. having a dead spring can kill a car (can vouch for that - lost a head gasket on my shadow because of a bad 4 dollar radiator cap).

anyhew, i haven't specifically looked at our cars to see if they work exactally like that or not, but any replacement radiator cap will work just fine. no need to stick with stant, just buy what's available to buy.

oh, and you're going to want that PCV to seal up tightly, or it's going to be rough travels. best check for it, since from what you say, it seems like the o-ring doesn't need to be there (which i haven't seen the recently updated mani, but i can't see how they'd actually be able to get rid of it), you can test it - when you get your car running again, take the oil cap off of your rocker covers. if you can hear/feel a vacuum, you need to get an o-ring in there.

:? Hmmm,,, okay here goes my 2 cents: The “spring loaded” cap is referring to a very small, very light pressure spring that just barely keeps the “coolant recovery check valve” closed. (that is, the little circular valve on the bottom, in the center of the pressure-sealing gasket.) -not the large pressure-regulating spring.

That little check valve (fluid equivalent of a diode in electricity) is sealed tight under normal operating pressures. When everything cools down, -especially overnight, the negative pressure in the system then draws coolant back out of the bottle, into the radiator by slightly opening that little check valve.

I’ve used both types on my old Astro Van, and I can say for sure that the spring-loaded cap ensures that the cooling system comes up to operating pressure much faster. Upon inspecting both types for my ’99 Bonneville, I decided that the spring loaded was probably better.

So, why did they go to that design?? -Don’t really know, but I’m wondering if maybe they figure it offers a little more insurance of keeping air out of the system ?? Anybody else have any ideas ??

Oh yeah, and about the discrepancy in the torque values: I used the higher settings on mine, and now wish I hadn't. From my experience, the higher setting distorts the plastic enough to cause the inner edges of the tuned air runner tubes to distort slightly, and not seal properly against the inner gasket. -can't see that it will cause any harm, but it does cause a loss of seal on the tuned runners inside. Everthing is still vacuum sealed by the outer perimeter gasket.
:evil: A couple of days after I had mine all back together, I noticed a slip of paper that had come with the gaskets, and said to use the lower settings. Oh well,, all is still fine. :)