Today I ran two boost tests. On the first I got some black smoke so I decided to try it again and see if my turbos were leaking oil. On the second test, my stock temp gauge jumped up so it was 2/3 from the bottom. I slowed down and turned on the heat( the AC was running ), the gauge went to the halfway mark, got home and parked it. After the car cooled down I checked my coolant level. At the filler neck it was down an inch or so but in the AST there was alot of black goo in the coolant and the AST was wet on the outside. Checked the oil dipstick, no white goo there, normal oil level, no white goo in the filler neck. There didn't seem to be any coolant in the overflow tank, but there was some black goo on the dipstick. I assume I lost the coolant from the AST cap and the goo got sucked in from the overflow tank. Does that sound plausible? What the hell is that gunk? The car ran fine and there wasn't any white smoke from the exhaust when I parked at the house so I THINK my coolant seals are ok. Any ideas on why my coolant is now "gunky"??

I was thinking of getting another temp gauge, but I'm wondering if that money might be better spent on a new rad:
http://www.radiatorworld.com/radiato...no=15107&cat=1

I'm thinkin' of the $220 one

 

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the coolant seals... try the bubble test. usually black gung in the coolant is from exhaust gases. and the only way exhaust could get there is through the coolant seals

 

You can also get black goo from your rubber coolant lines dieing on you. Mine had black goo from the turbo coolant lines just about a month before one poped on me. I replaced all rubber coolant lines and no more goo

 

Thanks guys. As soon as I get a few minutes this afternoon I'm gonna do the "champagne test" and see how it goes. Wish me luck!

 

i had this same problem...and black on the dip stick...what is the bubble test?

 

I would go with the 300 dollar radiator. Its only a couple more bucks and has a larger capacity than the others. Try flushing your sytem getting all the black crud out. Refill it with distiled water and coolant and keep checking to see if it comes back. Its never a bad idea to change out your hose's too.

 

The bubble test is when you start your car up with the fill cap off and check to see if any bubbles come up.

I like the bigger rad, but I'm wondering if it's so thick that the fans will hit my PFS SMIC.
The rad and rad hoses were replaced only 15k miles/2 years ago.

Gonna do a couple of things then do the test...

 

I'm actually begining to find it funny on how whenever anyone asks a coolant related question someone just has to point out coolant seals... lol

it's not your seals.

 

Ok Montego, what is it then?

 

I'm not a fan of the champagne bubble test. It's worthless unless you like being paranoid IMO.


worry about coolant seals only if you have:

1) Seems like the car runs on one rotor for a few seconds (coolant in chamber) then runs perfect (once it burns off) <--this is the main one right here
2) Excessive white smoke (you are burning coolant)
3) Hard cold starts (coolant in your chamber)
4) Unexplained loss of coolant (coolant is going into the chamber)
5) overheating (exhaust gasses are being passed into your cooling system and hindering it's performance)
6) Water in your oil <--- that one is easy

none of those symptoms come alone. It is always a combination of things. As in you do not have unexplainable loss of coolant... without the white smoke, nor water in your oil. The coolant is going somewhere and it's coming out your tailpipe or it's in your oil pan. If you have unexplainable loss of coolant with no white smoke and no creamy substance in your oil means that you have a coolant leak somewhere you just haven't found it yet....

Overheating with no other symptoms just means that there is something wrong with your cooling system. Something is clogged; t-stat got stuck, radiator sucks, fans don't work ect. ect.

 

Thanks dude. I did have some coolant loss, but it looked like it went out of the AST. Well I just took some time to look at the cooling system. Emptied out the AST and gunk, filled the fill spot, squeezed some hoses till I got as much of the air as I could. ALOT of little bit of junk in the coolant(maybe there's a blockage?). Started the car up. No white smoke, just one puff from condensation, I assume. No bubbles that I could see in the fill neck, but the coolant did get warm quickly and started to to come out of the fill neck. Idle was kinda funky, but no worse than usual, idles fine when warm. Like I said the temp gauge yesterday went up higher than midway and that worried me.
So right now it looks like something may be clogged or the thermostat is bad.

Any reason why the temp would jump after a boost test?

 

when you boost you are making your car work harder which translates to heat.

If your cooling system is not working properly (for whatever reason) it is not unlikely that you will see an instant rise in temp.

 

Durr of course, I should have thought of that. Guess I'll spending my weekend cleaning out the cooling system. Any suggestions on a coolant system cleaner?

 

sorry bro

 

LOL, thanks away, you've already been a big help. Time to do some searching on cleanin' out the cooling system...

 

That one is not a drop-in replacement. It needs work to get it mounted and it's not all that fun of a project. I would not recommend getting a radiator that large unless you have a need for it (like tracking the car a lot).

 

Thanks, I thought I remembered you saying something about these rads on another post and that the midpriced one would be a good fit.

 

I strongly suggest you get a Fluidyne rad. I also have a PFS SMIC and it fit perfectly with my stock rad. Later on I got a fluidyne and it's a tight fit. Do a search under Koyo (thicker) and PFS SMIC and you will see a few threads where people actually had to trim the duct to even get it fit decently.

 

sooo, if you dont have coolant in the oil, and absolutely no white smoke, you dont have fucked coolantseals? my car semed to run on one rotor this morning, but only for 5sek, newer done that before

 

If I remember correctly, the rad I pointed out is the same size as the Fluidyne and alot cheaper. Though I don't know if they both flow the same.

 

the running on one rotor is a huge one... If indeed you do have water in your chamber you will experience loss of coolant at the very least (at some point). In your case it's too early to tell since it just started today. But keep in mind that there are other possibilities as well: Spark plugs wires do go bad... or maybe it's time to change your plugs. All I'm saying at this point with no other symptoms it could be a number of things.

For peace of mind you could pull your spark plugs to see if they are wet (when your car has been sitting all night). If they are wet you know your seals are bad.

 

Yosh, I have one of the cooling system check things. It puts the system under pressure with a guage and you look for leaks. If you see no leaks, you watch the guage as it should not go down in pressure. It works OK for checking these things.

I flushed some brown goo out of my car with one of the kits where you hook your car up to a garden hose and run it until it comes out clean, after mixing in some chemicals to flush it works pretty well. But I found that the brown goo was in fact some engine seal that the previous owner had covered up some leaking coolant seals... That was at least nice to find out, but I do have to wonder how long that would have gone without me knowing if I had not flushed it.

This was a lowly, but much simpler GSL-SE BTW.

 

Actually the garden hose and adapter sounds pretty good, if I can get it to fit the FD. Used it on my old Dodge Dart, worked really well. Right now I plan on running some coolant system cleaner, flush, fill with distilled water with cleaner, check hoses, flush then refill with 20/80 antifreeze/water. If I still see the higher temps then I'll try replacing the t-stat and rad.
Which engine seal?
Hmm, maybe I can borrow your tester?
Thanks Cal!