Hey guys,
I pulled into my driveway yesterday in my '84 GSL-SE to find a cloud of steam sneaking out from under the hood. I popped the hood open, and using an inspection light (it was late), I noticed the steam was coming from under the intake manifold. I'm in the middle of midterms right now, so I can't go and pull the manifold off, so I'm hoping that someone will give me an idea of what to look for. Perhaps someone has had a similar problem.

Thanks!

 

I forgot to mention this... On the way home, some kid in an EF Civic was beside me at the lights. When it turned green, we both took off quickly. I'm pretty sure I heard the infamous VTEC kick in, but it didn't help him because I had pulled well ahead of him through 2nd gear and the beginning of third. I was surprised, I guess my GSL-SE is a bit faster then I had thought, especially if that was a swapped Civic with a B16A in it or something. I probably shouldn't have brought the old 13B up to 7000rpm with a coolant leak, but I wanted to see how she would do.

 

You probably had coolant leaking from the intake manifold onto the exhaust manifold, boiling the coolant and making it steam. Is there a puddle of coolant under the carb on the engine and intake manifold? If there is, you have bad intake o rings. You need to replace them. You'll have to take the intake manifold off and put new o rings and a new intake manifold gasket in if there is a puddle where I described. Let us know if there is a puddle on the engine.

 

It's a GSL-SE, so it's fuel injected.

I don't think its coming from that area. I'm pretty sure its coming from somewhere under the intake manifold plenum. I'd hate to have to take the entire intake manifold assembly off... that would be a pain!

 

There is a coolent line underneath the dynamic chamber that goes to the wax thermo thingy. It could be leaking. The only fix is to pull it and put a new hose in.

 

I just went out and checked, and it does look like it's leaking from the O-ring area. Either way, I've got to pull the intake manifold it seems.

I wanted to swap on S4 intake manifolds, I guess now is the time to do it.

 

I'm in the process of the S4 research, keep me posted on your swap.

 

Oh, forgot about that. I dont know then if its GSL-SE. Sorry.

 

Ok, so I pulled the manifolds off and it turns out that those O-rings that we thought were leaking actually don't exist on the GSL-SE 13B. There was a puddle of coolant directly above the O-ring spot for the rear rotor though. I'm going to inspect the hoses and all the coolant related hoses and see if there are any leaks in any of them.

Before I tore the car apart, I could hear air whooshing out of a hose in the area of the intake manifold when I squeezed the rad hose. Now to find the leak.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Also, what's the best way to clean up the auxiliary port sleeves and holes in the irons?

 

Brake cleaner

 

And a brass bristle brush or scotch brite pad for scrubbing. 0000 steel wool works too, but you need some sort of solvent, brake cleaner, atf or Seafoam to soften the carbon first.

 

Turns out the leak was from the hose that goes to the throttle body from the back of the water pump housing. I found out after I pulled the lower intake manifold. No big deal though, I wanted to pull the aux sleeves anyway to grease them up and clean out all the carbon.

 

B6T, just remember the orientation of the sleves as you pull them out. They need to go back in the same way.

 

Thanks for the heads up, but I was verrrrrrrrry careful to make sure they went in the proper orientation. In the service manual, it instructs you to line up the fatter part of the bar across the opening of the sleeve with a notch in the IM gasket, for those of you that may be interested.

 

I hope you put in the pineapple sleeves when you were there.

 

My bro's GSL-SS had a thermowax tube leak once. Coolant sprayed everywhere. It even filled in the RE-EGI sunken letters on top of the manifold.