On my 1999 Olds Alero with the V6 I was recently running into problems with consumption of antifreeze and then I ran into a steady misfire situation.
I was losing antifreeze into the oil recently, and for a little while was burning some white smoke out of the exhaust, my intuition told me part of it was the lower manifold gasket which is infamous on this motor. I had already developed a small leak on the exterior for months but there was no internal leakage.
I babied the car up to MA doing 2 oil changes beforehand and changed the intake manifold gasket noticing only blockage in the side port which I believe was just a coolant port, not intake. Anyhow, I started it up after and it ran like a charm, the steadiest I've ever seen the motor run in fact.
The next morning I went to bleed out the coolant system and Cylinder 1 is back to almost constantly misfiring. The motor will run fine on and off but then the engine will stumble and the engine light will flash and then go steady.
I've pulled the plug on this cylinder just before the job, it smelled like gas so I changed it (only 1 year old though) and it ran fine for about a week. However that's definately not the case now. I've changed the wires and coil as well before the gasket job and nothing changed then either.
I'm pretty stumped at this point, the only thing I have in mind is that the head gasket is shot and pulling antifreeze or oil into the cyilnder therefore pretty much fouling out the plug. Not entirely sure however, any input is appreciated.
The motor never really started to overheat outside of the lost antifreeze situation and even then it's never hit a temp higher than the third tick mark on the gauge.
I was losing antifreeze into the oil recently, and for a little while was burning some white smoke out of the exhaust, my intuition told me part of it was the lower manifold gasket which is infamous on this motor. I had already developed a small leak on the exterior for months but there was no internal leakage.
I babied the car up to MA doing 2 oil changes beforehand and changed the intake manifold gasket noticing only blockage in the side port which I believe was just a coolant port, not intake. Anyhow, I started it up after and it ran like a charm, the steadiest I've ever seen the motor run in fact.
The next morning I went to bleed out the coolant system and Cylinder 1 is back to almost constantly misfiring. The motor will run fine on and off but then the engine will stumble and the engine light will flash and then go steady.
I've pulled the plug on this cylinder just before the job, it smelled like gas so I changed it (only 1 year old though) and it ran fine for about a week. However that's definately not the case now. I've changed the wires and coil as well before the gasket job and nothing changed then either.
I'm pretty stumped at this point, the only thing I have in mind is that the head gasket is shot and pulling antifreeze or oil into the cyilnder therefore pretty much fouling out the plug. Not entirely sure however, any input is appreciated.
The motor never really started to overheat outside of the lost antifreeze situation and even then it's never hit a temp higher than the third tick mark on the gauge.
Apr 15, 2007 at 2:31 PM