coolant leak plus milky color

[97talon83]

ok, i know everyone first instinct here is head gasket. So ill run through what happened and i really need some experienced dsm help here.

I was taking everything off my 97 talon esi, NT obviously. I broke a shifter cable and was replacing it. In the process of the i took of two radiator hoses that were in my way, I believe that i mixed the two hoses up. Whoever has broken a shifter cable know the two small hoses i am taling about, right above the tranny. Anywho, so i think i mixed them up, and now i have a milky color coolant in my resivoir... So i change the hoses around and it is no overheating for a sec, then all the sudden temp shoots up again, and boiling again in my resevior.. I am seriously lost here, so i try one more time after it cooled down, same thing happens, only this time after i shut the car off, i lost all my coolant from somewhere in the back of the engine, and im freaking out because i love this car :/

any ideas guy, ### help

 

[phunny]

Can you do a quick compression test?

 

[turbodude]

The coolant leak your talking about at the back of your engine could be one of the hoses running to the heater core that possible got torn or partially disconnected or something, so i'd check those out. The milky color of your coolant could be a number of things, how long has it been since you flushed your coolant system? if it's been a while it's probably just dirty and needs a good flush. i've seen coolant reservoirs with thick brown sludge built up from neglect and that in turn makes the entire coolant brownish and milky looking. Now if you have milky oil and see coolant in there, now your talking head gasket.

 

[danielbo91]

Check your heater core hoses those go bad sometimes,may be your thermostat is bad, they cheap only 10 bucks,you said you water looks milky maybe has rust in the cooling system do a cooling system treatment.

 

[obsidian]

I'm saying headgasket.

Here is a post I like to use from time to time as I see headgasket failures. This is mine and I've not copied it from anyone.

--------------------------

There are several types of headgaskets failures.

You have three things the headgasket seals.
1. Oil.
2. Coolant (antifreeze)
3. Exhaust gases and combustion pressure.

All three of these can leak to the other system.

You can be leaking combustion gasses into the coolant system such as pwee is saying (my truck has this exact symptom right now) and this causes a bad thing because the gasses get into the coolant and the air in that system and that stops the cooling process from happening. This can cause bad things quickly.

The coolant can be leaking into the oil which is where you get the "Chocolate milk" symptom and this is a immediate failure of the headgasket and if not caught quickly enough (we're talking seconds to minutes) then a complete failure of the engine is imminent.

The oil can be leaking into the coolant which causes the oil film on top of the coolant in the cooling system. This is considered a "minimal" failure and doesn't cause too much damage but can lead to serious damage if left unchecked. Normally a headgasket change and a cooling system flush fixes this and no serious long term damage is found.

The oil/coolant can leak into the combustion chamber. This causes the white/blue smoke that you sometimes see. If this happens while the car is not running then a "hydraulic seizure" can happen and serious damage can occur. This is not normally the case.

Finally, the coolant/oil seal can just fail on the outside portion and you'll see that liquid coming from that seal and it's normally not a serious problem but can turn into something serious if left unchecked. I had this happen to me on a old car of mine and I ran it like this for a month while I collected the parts/seals needed to do it.

As far as the coolant out the back of the engine, I'm not sure. There are numerous hoses and a bad thermostat could have caused the coolant to boil.

 

[97talon83]

ok, so from what i have read so far....

1. possible head gasket
2. possible thermo/heater hoses

the weird thing about it is, its never overheated or anything, i was letting the alternator charge my battery so i let it run for about 20 minutes straight.. did not check on it because i have never had overheating problems. When i go outside i immediately shut the car off because coolant was boiling in the tank and was like a chocalate milk color..... could switching those two hoses have seriously made my head gasket blow??

also, i cant do a compression test, but when the motor is running it seems normal, and still has a lot of power. I also checked the oil and it doesnt seem to have coolant in it... which doesnt mean its not a head gasket.. is there a way to actually tell if the gasket is bad?

 

[obsidian]

It's probably a headgasket. When you overheated (water pump or thermostat) you could have blown the headgasket then.

Those hoses probably had nothing to do with it. The coolant loss could have but probably not the hoses.

 

[DeathdealerATX]

+1 headgasket

 

[97talon83]

ok update guys.

I flushed my system and did a oil change to see if antifreeze was in the oil or coolant.

Absolutely nothing in either. New thing found when i was messing with it is..

1. Runs hot at idle, when i rev the motor past 3k rpm, the temps drops to normal again..
2. The top hose going into my res tank from my thermo housing is hot, but the hose located at the bottom of the radiator is cold, not even warm..

ANY IDEAS?

 

[jw4free]

You must let your vehicle warm up to operating temperatures (above 180ish) because you thermostat will stay closed until the threshold temperature is met.

Once the coolant in the head reaches the themostat temperature, it will open and the coolant system will circulate cooled water through the engine.

When the whole coolant system warms up to operating temperature, pressure will build in the system and expose potential leaks.

They sell additives to the coolant to check for leaks with a black light if your loosing coolant and can't see where its going.

 

[obsidian]

Change your thermostat.

 

[97talon83]

was a small pinhole leak in a hose i moved out of my way to get the shifter cables on