Thread: 2003 3.1l overheat with thermostat removed

Of course he would have disowned me for that Lol. Give me the I taught you better than that and talked to me "until I'm blue in the face." Speech.

you got the little bottle. i got the large one cause its all they had, but through advance auto on line i got it cheaper.

i forgot about the money back guarantee. but then again it works.

jeff this stuff is not a sludge or slurry or pellets. its just liquid. stuffs come a long way from the black tar pellets lol

Sounds like it. After the first couple of fails I swore off stop leak of any kind. Hopefully I never need it but I'll be a little more open minded about it now.

i didnt even think about for 20 years lol then this pos engine i had has bubbles in the rad and kept blowing coolant out the over flow bottle. added blue devil and i stopped loosing coolant, over flow acted normal too.

i took the heads off it too, the gaskets looked ok, so im thinking it had a crack in the heads coolant jacket or something.

Originally Posted by J57ltr

Of course he would have disowned me for that Lol. Give me the I taught you better than that and talked to me "until I'm blue devil in the face." Speech.

fixed it

mechanic in a bottle FTW !!!

been riding around a bottle of blue devil power steering stop leak in the trunk for 6 months...sooner or later i'm gonna try it.

Give yourself a whole day to do the LIM. Don't do it if you have to go to work or something later in the day. That way if things don't go according to plan or you break something, you have plenty of time resolve the issue. YouTube has tons of great 3.1L and 3.4L LIM gasket videos. The gasket set, if it's by Fel-Pro, is probably $70 tops. Find it on Amazon or something, it will be cheaper. If all gaskets are original, you'll need upper intake gaskets too. That set costs maybe $40 or $50. That set should include other o-rings for certain tubes and hoses. I would save up maybe $150 for this job (may seem like a lot, but just think of what it'd be at a repair shop), especially if every gasket needs to be changed. I'm not 100% on these amounts, this is just what I would expect. You also need to buy coolant and possibly change your oil? I know on the 3.8L if you spilled coolant into the valley, you had to flush it out with oil and do an oil change. I'm not sure it's the same for this engine?

The lim is a pretty PITA job on the 3100... You will definitely NEED the rocker arm tool, trust me! Do your research first because you'll want to have everything handy.

Used the stop leak on the 3100 knowing what a PITA it was to take it apart for the lim job (yes, lazy), kept it sealed until the front cover started leaking... Pin hole leak at first that leaked just enough to burn off without finding anything wet, but losing coolant. So thought it was burning it or head gasket. But then the front cover gasket really gave out and was easy to find the problem. Lol... So the moral of the story is try and find the leak, positively, where it is from. Clean the engine and let it dry, pressure test collant sys, compression test cylinders (head gaskets) and whatnot. If you find its the front cover and decide to do the job, you'll need the right tool for the balancer pulley... Another PITA... A day for each, or a nice weekend for both at same time. And yes, if you really let the thing overheat, the heads on 3100 are known to warp, but that'll show itself pretty fast. If you used the stop leak, and fix the lim or cover, I would flush the system pretty good and replace coolant getting rid of Dex crap. Change the thermostat too while it's all apart because that too is a PITA to change later...

anyways, good luck!
: )

Will someone explain to me why you would need a rocker arm tool, as I have done about 5 of the 3.1 and 3.4 LIM jobs and didn't use a rocker arm tool for nary a one of them. The only special tool I needed was a torque wrench and an angle torque gauge.

Jeff

Originally Posted by J57ltr

Will someone explain to me why you would need a rocker arm tool, as I have done about 5 of the 3.1 and 3.4 LIM jobs and didn't use a rocker arm tool for nary a one of them. The only special tool I needed was a torque wrench and an angle torque gauge.

Jeff

Because with the tool, you do NOT have to remove the rocker arms, lossen or otherwise, no need to retorque... It allows you to compress the valve spring and remove the push rods thereby making it a much easier job eliminating the need to do unneeded extra work. ; )

To each his own...

Well I wish I had known. I will probably never do another one again, but I'll know now.

Jeff

Taking the bolt off and loosing the rocker arms don't seem that bad. They're just more bolts that need to be tightened down.

Yeah the rocker arm tool just makes the job easier. I've done 3 of them without and did one with, will never do it without it again.

Sent from A Galaxy Far Far Away

I kind of want to do one, just to see what it's like and to have the experience. I think it would be fun.