i honestly believe that my intake gaskets are gone again. this will be the 3rd time this year!!! the first time my uncle told me i probably torked (sp?) the bolts too much. i told him i didnt think that was the problem and that the heads were warped or cracked or something thereof. so we tore the whole engine down again and had the back head checked out because t was the 1 that blew the second gasket. it came back fine. so he stayed and helped make sure we bolt all the bolts in the right way and what not. a couple days later she was over heating again while sitting at idle. it turns out that the rad cap was bad. so i got another one. i didnt have a problem up until i went out of state this past weekend and she overheated again while we were sitting in traffic waiting to get on turn pike. God was i mad!!! we took it to a mechanic and he said that everything was normal. the fan didnt turn on until it reached 232 degrees and its supposed to turn on at 226. then it didnt want to shut off. the temp was all the way down to 184 degrees. he said that the only time it does that is if there is an air bubble in the system and asked if we bled it out. i said yes but i do have 1 bleeder that is broke but ive not had a problem till now. and i had put over 2k miles on the engine since the gaskets were all done. we replaced the fan/temp switch today thinking it had a glitch...she still overheated. the only other cheap thing left is the relays. it already has a new water pump and thermostat. but i think the intakes are wet on the passenger side. why does it keep blowing gaskets?!!? should i get a new intake??? replace my heads anyways? run it into a tree?? please help!

 

what brand gaskets are you using? on the two cars i did i used the felpro set and have had no problems yet. also are you running a thick bead of rtv between the 2 heads? and following the proper torque sequence? 3100 intake gasket howto

 

When you had them off did you check to see if they were warped?

 

Im not sure what brand of gaskets they were. id have to find the receipts to check but they are not the plastic ones tho. they are the metal and rubber. and yes there is a thick bead between the heads. we followed proper torque sequence and the only head that was checked was the back 1 because it was the head that blew 2 sets of gaskets...i said that in the second and third sentence...im wondering if my intake itself is warped...has any1 ever had that problem? i know these engines are notorious for blowing intake gaskets but this is getting to be ridiculous!!! or if nothing is warped...can something as small as 1 overheat blow a set of gaskets?

 

Something as small as 1 overheat can ruin your heads and never let a gasket seat properly to begin with.

I would have the compression tested.

 

First, use the Fel Pro aluminum gaskets, those are the way to fly, the nylon is crap.

Second, some of your symptoms sound like what my 3100 in my Grand Am went through when the head gaskets went bad (except I was not blowing intake gaskets yet).

If you bleed out an air pocket multiple times, you MIGHT be getting compression gases into the cooling system (from a failed head gaskets). This could result in:
- False temp reading (hot air will read hotter then coolant and keep the TSTAT from opening when it should).
- Possible rough idle for the first few seconds from a cold start.
- Too much pressure in the cooling system. It's designed for 13-15lbs of pressure. When you exceed that, the pressure has to go somewhere and the weakest part gets the damage. Some of that pressure will release through the pressure release on the radiator cap, but that is designed to only handle so much. My Grand Am blew the gasket on the side tank in the radiator towards the end. This may be the cause of you intake gaskets failing, the pressure is blowing them out and why your radiator cap appeared bad and possible tie to the over heat issue.

Have a pro diagnose it. If it is a head gasket, you will want to fix it before the over pressure kills more parts of the system. I changed my head gaskets and radiator, all my problems went away and the car runs great.

 

My head gaskets are new...everything is new...bolts, gaskets, water pump,tstat,temp switch,rad cap. We pressure tested it and its not holding pressure. Now b4 the overheating issue over the weekend...i have no clue what the pressure was like. the car ran fine. I pumped up the pressure while he looked for a a drip and he couldn't find one. the only place where there is coolant is on the left side (if ur facing engine)(near water pump) and i studied it while adding pressure and its not leaking out to the point where you can notice. we think right now it is tiny enough to cause the air pocket in the system and cause the overheating but not big enough to loose an noticeable amount of fluid...that will be soon tho. She does not miss fire...yet. im waiting for that. i was told to put stop leak in it...im not fond of that stuff by no means but hey it looks like im going to be replacing my heads and my intake anyways and im half tempted to replace my radiator also! Im upset that we had that back head checked and it came back fine and now its doing it all over again...i should have replaced it when my gut told me to! that guy probably didnt find what he needed to. OR if its not the heads... something as small as the relays for fan going nuts actually causes the intakes to blow??? 1 overheat can be all it takes?? because if thats true..THAT is un fricken real!! my Taurus overheated a few times and not once did i ever have to worry about the intakes going or heads for that matter. If thats what its gong to be like with this car...im not sure i even want it anymore!!

 

can i put a 3.8 in this car or is my trany not set up to have the 3.8?

 

It might be worth your while to check the exhaust and see if its clogging at all. Its most likely not your problem but worth a glance.

 

When you had the head checked did they just check the surface to make sure it was flat, or did they tear it down and magnaflux it? I've seen more than one head that upon visual inspection looked good but a crack was detected when magnafluxed that couldn't be seen otherwise. When the head comes up to operating temp the metal expands and then the crack allows leakage. Another possibilty is that the head might be good, but the deck surface of the block might be warped. Make sure you check it before buying new heads. It would be a bad day if you put the new heads on only to find that you still had a leak. Do you remember what section of the old head gasket showed sign of leakage? That area is the first place I'd inspect on the head and block.