hell_sol

ok, i'm fairly mechanicly inclined, but this one has really got me stumped.

my 93 del sol d16z6 was running perfect until today. i was driving to a friend's house when the idle started bouncing from 700 to 2000 rpm. it did this continuously so i thought, ok, it's just my throttle position sensor, no big deal. well after i drove home from my friends house, it did the same thing but now it's overheating too and my heater doesn't work. so there's no coolant being pumped through my heater core but it just seems too coincidental that two completely different components of the engine would break at the exact same time. this is so weird and i just really have no idea whats going on with my car. please help me !

boxeocampeon

could be a blown head gasket or a blown head check to see if theres oil in the coolant

forcefedferio

It's not that two different things went bad on your car coincidentally, the idle is affected by your lack of coolant.

Troubleshoot the leak, but i'm kinda leaning towards what boxeocampeon said.

Former User

When the engine is cool, top off the coolant in both the radiator and reservoir and then bleed the cooling system. During this procedure, check for coolant leaks and white smoke in the exhaust, as already mentioned.

hell_sol

it is in fact leaking oil into the coolant but it's not leaking coolant into the oil. so yes, there is a gasket thats leaking but i don't think it's the head gasket.

so the amount of coolant (and or air bubbles ) in my coolant system will effect the idle ?

Former User

This is almost certainly the sign of a blown head gasket. And yes, exhaust gases allowed into the cooling system by the blown head gasket would cause an idle problem by discombobulating the ECT sensor.

boxeocampeon

change the gasket now before it leads to even bigger problems like melting your pistons. then your gonna have to rebuild the engine do not drive it until you replace the gasket

hell_sol

but if the head gasket was blown wouldn't the oil be milky too? when i check the oil, the dipstick has the perfect oil color and consistency. also, there's no noticable change in power, no missing, or smoke of any kind coming out the exhaust.

upon further thought, i think it might be that i just need to add coolant to the radiator because i remember that when i poped the hood, the crack in the top of my radiator had steam coming out of it instead of the usual stream of coolant, lol. but here's the weird thing, my coolant reservoir was totally full. is there anything that could cause my car to not take coolant from the reservoir when the system gets low? the coolant reservoir tube is fine, no kinks or anything.

hell_sol

i think i just have a whole lot of air in my coolant system since the heater didn't work. wow, thats scary to think about. i wonder why the coolant reservoir didn't drain into the coolant system.

Former User

You don't necessarily get all known symptoms of a blown head gasket when this occurs. The leaking radiator may have allowed the engine to overheat, which in turn caused the head gasket to blow. The overfilled coolant reservoir may signify the high pressure of exhaust gas entering the cooling system via the blown gasket.

hell_sol

i've had oil leaking into the coolant system for a long time now. i usually top off the radiator as often as i can since i know the radiator has a leak. i think this time i just let it go too long without being filled. and i had assumed that since the reservoir was full that it wasn't leaking very much coolant. i overfilled the reservoir on purpose the last time i filled it, so i think maybe thats the problem with why the reservoir wouldn't drain into the coolant system. maybe when you overfill the reservoir, it can't drain, i dunno.

hell_sol

problem solved !!!

i was decieved by my coolant reservoir. for some dam reason the reservoir didn't allow extra coolant to be put into my engine when it ran low. so it appeared that i was fine when in fact.. i was EXTREMELY low on coolant. i had to add about a gallon of water to the top of the radiator and now it runs perfect.

so now i'm worried about something else. i drove the car for percisely 6.2 miles with such little coolant that it caused my heater to not work and caused my engine to idle funny. the coolant temp gauge never hit the high mark but that doesn't account for much since the sensor wasn't submerged in liquid. so what i'm wondering now is, did i damage my head gasket ? or am i fine since the car never really reached the high mark on the temp gauge ?