Thread: Need help!!!!!!!

my girlfriends car is a 97 grand prix and its leaking coolant from a plastic hose under the altinator and i dont know what the hose is called i aint good with pontiacs

They are coolant elbow. Very easy fix, here is a link to what they are....ZZ Performance
you can get them at any parts store though.

Hello I'm new on here and seen you were helping a guy with his coolant leak. I have the tensioner with the aluminum elbow and part of the elbow has broken off in the engine cover / water pump housing. Any tips on how to get this peice out? Thanks in advance

So anybody have a solution to getting out the broken piece of the coolant tube? It broke off from the tensioner bracket and is now stuck inside of the water pump housing. Please don't tell me I have to replace the whole front engine cover. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hey thanks Red Devil. I had this happen before with the plastic ones. This is a first for me with the aluminum one and its corroded pretty good. I was thinking of trying an easy out.

Success!!!!! The easy out actually worked!!!!! Thanks again Red Devil and 01 GTP for your input!!!! I sure was sweating it for a minute there. Now the real work begins. I'm converting a 3800 N/A back to an N/A. The guy I bought the car from tried converting it to a S/C but had it all screwed up. Plus he never changed the harness, computer, or the fuel pump. Some peoples kids I tell ya....lol

Ya, I'm soaking it with pb blaster right now. Hoping that will break loose some of the corrosion. I was gonna try to heat it up but that makes me a bit nervous being aluminum. The good part is I gotta run to work to get my easy outs. So it's gonna get to soak a bit until I get back. I'll let you know if it works.

Does anyone know the tightening sequence and torque specs for the plenum on a 97 3800? My book shows 17 ft lbs for a supercharger, but i used those specs and now i'm leaking antifreeze and have a hell of a multiple misfire

I deffinately have the firing order correct. the car ran nice and smooth until the stat opened then it started running ruff and i could smell antifreeze from the exhaust. I replaced everything including head gaskets, intake gaskets plenum and all.....ya upper intake or plenum

Originally Posted by Red Devil

Double check to make sure your wire's are going to the correct plugs 1st and for most. Double check all your work and you might find your misfire issue.

I belive the final torque spec is 11 ft pounds. I normaly just tighting them down to 15 ft pounds because that's as low as my strap-on torque wrench goes.. I've done at least 100 intake gasket jobs with no issues with increasing the final torque to 15 ft pounds.

Start in the center and make circles outward tightening the front and rear last, then recheck tourque in any order
9 5 1 4 8 10 6 2 3 7.

is there any chance of cracking those plastic intake gaskets if i over torqued them just a bit? Car only ran about 20 min, but I'm guessing I'll have to buy new gaskets anyway

ok for anybody interested I found the problem. It's what people call the stove pipe issue. The egr tube melted a hole in the upper intake and caused antifreeze to leak into the intake and down the cylinders. I seen something suspicious in the egr port so I covered one coolant port and blew threw the other and sure enough I got air coming out of the side of the egr port. Hope this helps somebody.