420A N/T overheating after using Seafoam

[pgarland]

Alright, newb here with a question. I went ahead and used Seafoam on my 99 Eclipse GS today, and as I was driving the car afterwards to run the rest of the Seafoam out, my temp gauge shot all the way up and my beloved Eclipse starting billowing white smoke (I definitely smelled coolant). Lucky for me I was only about a mile from my house when I noticed the problem, I ran it straight home and shut the car off. It has been sitting in my driveway cooling since. I could definitely hear the coolant boiling under the cap for a few minutes after I shut it off. There is no coolant leak, and the car has never overheated on me since I bought it (6 months ago). I checked the engine oil, and it is not the chocolate-shake looking mess that you sometimes see when a head gasket goes.

Here's a little history on the car. I bought the car 6 months ago, it has about 133,000 miles on it. It is a Oz Edition GS (non turbo even though it has the turbo spoiler). The dealer I bought the car from replaced the radiator before putting it on his lot due to a small hole (I have checked closely, the radiator in the car is definitely new), but he bought the car at auction so I have no way of knowing if this car has any history with overheating problems, needed a new head gasket at anytime in its past, or anything else relevant. Since I bought it I have had the timing belt and accessory belt replaced (had the water pump and tensioners replaced too), I cleaned the MAF and IAC (with carb cleaner...they were filthy...I replaced the throttle body gasket when I cleaned the IAC too), replaced the spark plugs (with NGK G-Power plugs) replaced the cam seals (to fix a small oil leak) and valve cover seal, and I was getting ready to replace the EGR valve (due to the car stalling and idling a little rough...also the reason why I ran the Seafoam through it today). The car obviously wasn't looked after as good as it should have been by the previous owner, but overall (mechanically) it was in decent shape, and I got it for a great price. I have always loved the look of these cars, and have been thrilled with this car despite the little issues I have had since I bought it. Worst part is, I think the stalling/rough idle problems have been completely solved now, but its hard for me to celebrate when I'm blowing clouds of burnt coolant out the exhaust!

Using the Seafoam, I followed the instructions very closely, sucked it (about 2/3rds of a can) into the motor through a vacuum line on the throttle body, turned the car off and let it sit for about 20-25 minutes. While the car was sitting, I went ahead and put the rest of the can into the fuel tank (about 1/3rd of a can was left). I then started it up and revved the motor for about ten minutes...I waited until the car idled smoothly and most of the smoke had started to clear, then took it on a drive down the road. I don't think that the overheating problem was caused by the Seafoam (except for maybe the Seafoam cleared out some buildup around the gasket that was blocking a leak?). I only mention it in the interest of full disclosure.

Sorry for my long winded post, I figured the more information I can pack into this thing, the better the replies. I have done an exhaustive search through the forums (and on a bunch of other forums online), and haven't found an answer, so I apologize in advance if this has been answered already.

Here is my question:

Should I automatically assume the worst and go buy new head bolts and a head gasket set since there was such a large amount of coolant burning off in my exhaust? Is it at all possible that there is any other explanation for this to have happened (one which wouldn't involve me spending an entire weekend under my hood removing and replacing the head gasket and having to get my heads re-machined)?

I'm letting the car cool overnight before I start chasing down the fault, so I will post updates tomorrow if I find out anything else relevant. I appreciate in advance any help you guys can offer.

Thanks.

 

[southrneclipser]

It sounds like your head gasket it blown. It might completely coinsidental that it happened after you did the seafoam, or you might be right and it cleared out some junk that was stopping a leak. The reason you didn't have any coolant in your oil (milkshake stuff) is becuase you caught it early enough that not enough of it got into the oil and passed through the oil pump making it turn all goopy. So my guess is that you should change your head gasket.

 

[#40Fan]

Pull the plugs and look down into the cylinders with a light. See if you can see any antifreeze sitting on top of a piston. Do this before starting it in the morning. If there is coolant in there, then trying to crank the engine could cause more damage.

 

[pgarland]

Pull the plugs and look down into the cylinders with a light. See if you can see any antifreeze sitting on top of a piston. Do this before starting it in the morning. If there is coolant in there, then trying to crank the engine could cause more damage.

Good call. Not only keeps me from doing further damage to my motor, but if there is coolant sitting on top of the pistons, then the head gasket is definitely wasted. Thanks for the replies from both of you, I will update as soon as I know more.

I just finished helping my neighbor swap a motor in his Firebird (and we had just replaced the head gasket on his old motor like 3 weeks before...needless to say we weren't too happy having to swap the motor after doing all that work), and all the coolant that had sat in the bottom end of his old motor just wrecked it. Is there anything on the 420A I need to be concerned about (like bearings)? I may have to wait a week before being able to start a head gasket job, and I definitely don't want to do all that work only having to replace the whole motor anyways because the coolant destroyed the bottom end. Any recommendations? Or should I just be thankful that I caught it before too much coolant got mixed in with the oil?

 

[bullettdsm]

You got a headgasket job to do. Don't forget to plane the head. With the history you stated I would believe that car has overheated a few times in its past. Highly unlikely, that your bearings are bad because of the headgasket. Especially since you have no/limited mix of coolant and water in your oil.

MB

 

[pgarland]

Looks like I may end up not having to do a head gasket job after all!!! The pistons looked dry to me when I checked under the plugs, but I was certain that this was because the coolant that had gotten into the cylinders had been burnt off. When I went out this evening to start my tear down, a gut feeling told me to check the coolant level in the car. Well, the radiator was empty, so I refilled it and the reservoir, and started the car back up to see if the thermostat was even working. It didn't appear to be opening when the car reached operating temperature, so I shut the car down, pulled the thermostat, boiled it in water to see if it was defective (it was, it never opened for me) and then decided to take a run to to Autozone to get a replacement thermostat and gasket (at this point I figured that the thermostat was faulty and would need replaced anyways). Brought the new thermostat and gasket home, installed it, and decided on a whim just to see what would happen if I refilled the radiator and overflow tank with coolant/water (since they were both bone dry). Well, as I started to add water into the radiator, I started to hear a heavy dripping sound coming from the driver's side of the car (underneath...). Got down under it, and immediately noticed that everything I just added to the radiator was leaking (POURING) out of the right side heater hose (the one that runs to the firewall). Upon further inspection, I found that I was able to stick 4 fingers directly into this humongous gash in the heater hose...which explained where all the coolant had gone! I know I mentioned above that there were no coolant leaks, well, tuns out I was wrong, the coolant had all puddled up just under the motor on the drivers side. When my engine got super hot, it started burning this puddle of coolant, hence all the billowing smoke coming out the back of my moving car (which I now realize that I had mistaken for it coming out of the exhaust!

So, the good news is that it looks like I just have to replace the heater hose that runs to the firewall, and voila, my coolant will circulate correctly, hopefully cooling the motor like it should. I am planning to do this tomorrow...and I will update the thread with what I'm hoping is good news tomorrow when I finish the work!

Like I said above, thanks for everything guys...your help is greatly appreciated.

 

[gudz519]

not trying to jack the thread but after installing a gauge face my temp gauge stopped working i replaced the top one in the engine bay (sending unit) but it is still not working any way of fixing this?

 

[kerndog8]

The top one references the PCM, the smaller one under it is the feed to the gauge cluster.

 

[pgarland]

Have you checked all the wiring? I know I had an issue before where my temp gauge quit on me...I went into the dash to monkey around with some of the wiring (my cruise control was not turning on either, that was my main reason for checking behind the dash-driver's side)...I didn't really get too far into chasing down wires, but I did jiggle and pinch a few of the connections, and suddenly my temp gauge and my cruise control started working again. A faulty wire can cause all sorts of headaches...I recommend checking these first. Hope this helps, let me know if it doesn't, I'll try to offer up any more advice if I can.

And no worries about the thread hijack, we're all here to help, right?

 

[gudz519]

thanks i appreciate it ill try that hopefully it works

 

[pgarland]

Update:

Changed out the two heater hoses running to the firewall...problem solved. Now I can begin celebrating that I cured all my rough idle problems!

Again, thanks to all that contributed, your help is appreciated.

 

[MunkyX69]

On a side note. If you seafoam your engine, you'll almost always get that white smoke. I do it to my 3g eclipse all the time and I smoke out the entire shop. It's also a good way of finding exaust leaks if you have one.