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Overheat [Coolant leak / No Oil Pressure ]

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majik2k5

15+ Year Contributor
799
18
Jul 13, 2005
Lemoore, California
I'm posting this for a friend who doesn't have access to a computer.

Yesterday morning he was on his way to Canton and he looked down and noticed his temperature gauge had climbed all the way up past the mark. So he pulled over and shut the car off.

As soon as he shut the car off, it sounded like something popped and then white smoked poured everywhere from the right side of the engine bay. He said it looked like it was leaking coolant from the line leading to the oil filter housing, but is there even a coolant line leading to the oil filter housing?

So he filled up with coolant and decided to drive about another half a mile to his friends house and park it. On the way there, he noticed then that he had low oil pressure and was leaking oil then.

What would cause him to overheat, and then leak coolant like that and then start leaking oil and losing oil pressure within a 20 minute span like that?


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xx EDIT xx

Alright, so I got a little bit more info from him that might help. He says he noticed his oil pressure was low, but he was only going about 35 or so the whole way there. He said he never went over 50MPH. He put some oil in it when he was leaking, but apparently he wasn't leaking too bad at all, because now his dipstick reads over full.
 
You likely blew a hose or something. Why it got hot? Perhaps a stuck thermostat or something like that. Low oil pressure? Probably a sending unit. Hopefully. The white smoke was extremely hot anti freeze. It was a giant tea kettle.

When it cools, pressure test the coolant system and find the leak. Replace the thermostat. Start it and see what happens. Maybe, just maybe you haven't warped the head. If you didn't, it will the next time probably if it does it again.

Do a manual oil pressure test with a cheap gauge at any parts store. You may have to buy additional adapters to get it to work.

5 psi per 1000 rpm should be acceptable for most situations. That is the low end of the scale though. Any less and you need to start saving your money.

Good Luck
 
If its NOT a 1990 then yes there is a coolant line leading to the oil filter housing. its an internal oil cooler. if you look by the filter you will see it.
 
OK, also here's a little bit more information. He also noted that even after the car warmed up after like five miles or so from his house, that it still wasn't blowing heat.
 
Oil pressure:
Check to see if the wire connecting to the oil sending unit (gauge) is hooked up. It's a bell shaped sensor on the oil filter housing.
Coolant:
I'd run a compression test before anything else. If you have a coolant leak on the outside of the block then you're obviously going to fix it. Or, you're going to spend a fortune in new coolant.
 
brodiedehass said:
If your coolant is low you will have nothing to bring heat to the heater core. Solve the leak, top off the coolant and heat should return.

That's correct. A stuck thermostat could also cause no heat, though.

What Old Mitsu Tech said was right on. Overheating (and no heater) was probably due to a bad thermostat, a hose blew, and the steam started rolling out...
There are plenty of ways to locate an external coolant leak. If you need help locating it, just say the word :)

I'd replace the thermostat, thoroughly check any and every hose that sees coolant, and run a compression check for good measure, as Damien mentioned (to rule out a warped head/shot headgasket).

Is this the first time the car has done this, to your knowledge?
 
To my knowledge, yes.

I narrowed down most of the problem. I found a blown coolant line leading to the oil filter housing. Definately where my coolant leak was coming from. Afterwards, I put more coolant back in and it was still leaking, but it was leaking from right around the underdrive pulley.

So I called brodiedehass, and we talked about it for a few minutes and we're gonna go ahead and replace the water pump. It got extremely cold here the other night, and it's possible that it siezed up. Since the dripping is right around where the water pump is, it's not gonna hurt to replace it.

I noticed oil on the ground after this whole thing started. But my dipstick has blown out a thousand times before. Is it possible that the oil was just being washed off the engine by the coolant leaking out?
 
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