Maybe I should post this on the engine page?

Last friday my girlfriend Deb took the '03 Monte Pace car for a night out with her sister and neice. The neice has a B-day tomorrow and they celebrated a week early.

When Deb got home I popped the hood to let the engine cool. As soon as the hood came up I smelled antifreeze. (oops, not good)

I smelled around a little bit and it seemed the smell was coming from the passenger side of the radiator?

But I got to thinking, I've seen posts on people complaining dex-cool eating intake gaskets or something like that. It got me thinking maybe this is what has happened?

I first thought maybe the lower radiator hose was loose but aren't they held in place with a large spring clamp? Unless the hose has shunk under the hose clamp and this is allowing a small amount of coolant out?

 

3.8l's dont have the same problem as the 3.4's do, but they do have a problem with the actual intake manifold warping or cracking, check out dorman part # 615-180 (just google it) if you want to see what it looks like, but we sell a tonne of those @ the store for the 3.8l engines and they are definetely an issue, but once you replace it with this you wont have the issue again....thats not to say thats what the problem is, but if its a 3.8l then thats a good posibility that its the upper intake manifold itself (as they're plastic)

if its a 3.4 then yes it could be the lower intake manifold gaskets which felpro makes the replacement for them (MS98003T) but i think the pacecars were all 3.8's weren't they?

puttin that red antifreeze was a big mistake by gm
you can always have your system flushed and put green in after you get the problem fixed as well and it extends the life of your parts, the red stuff seems to eat engine's

 

https://www.dormanproducts.com/cgi-b...tegory_list=:0

 

The Dorman part dosnt fix the problem.

Hope the link works.

http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/t699906.html

 

It's the 3800 engine in the car.

If the intake has cracked are there any tell tale signs? Like a puddle of coolant laying on top of the engine, or ?????????

 

every single one i have sold has fixed the problem, so i dont know why it wouldn't fix it, i've sell about 20-30 of these a year..and everyone has worked fine

 

you'd probably be burning through antifreeze or it would be going through the oil... so you'd be losing it somewhere...levels would be going down slowly, and could be messy on top too...

 

So it's like a blown head gasket?

I did notice and stuck my finger is some crud at the filler neck of the radiator. But this was a rust color. Not dark like oil would be.

 

1: You wont always see it. The anti freeze can congeal and stop flowing before you can see it before the tear down.
2: The level will go down, it might be a very small leak so it will take time but it will.Get a pressure test and you will know.
3: The original 3800 intake design was faulty. The redesigned ( aftermarket ) intakes work well. They dont twist and crack like the factory ones.
4: What can say about that lovely Red Juice from h3ll!!! Even if it turns out to be just the intake gaskets, yes the 3800 does eat intakes as well just not as often as the 3.1 or 3.4, get that red long life out of there. Flush it really well and use good anti freeze and you all fine.

Just a note on the red long life. From what i have found is there is no real evidence of it being the only culprit. The majority of the time is that the car has had the stuff in it for way to long and it has gone acidic. Hard to say either way, just to be safe, get it out.

 

Thanks for all the info guys! I was wondering which Dex-cool was the culprit. Because a local Chevy dealership still has jugs of Dex-cool on display for sale in the waiting area of the service department. I think it's the green stuff though.

I'll have to check what color my anti-freeze is. My Monte sat on the Chevy dealer's lot for three years unsold until I bought it in august of 2007. So I'm sure it has whatever anti-freeze the factory put in.