Coolant in the intake, Damn.

All I wanted to do was replace the injectors. I took off the intake manifold to try and get the bushings out. I did an inspection of the valves since I had visual access. What a nice surprise.
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What, me worry?
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I think when you weren't looking someone dribbled a bit in there as a practical joke. Just reseal the injectors and butter er up. A little bit of water in the intake will keep everything nice and clean too.

 

OH MAN! That sucks.

Well looks like your gonna have to pull the heads.
Or put in some stop leak...........Hahahahahaha!!!!!! I kid, I kid, DO NOT use "stop leak", pull the heads.

 

if you do not suspect a cracked head - where did the coolant come from?

i assume there are no coolant passages in the intake????
Rgds,
Vincenzo

 

Pressure test the cooling system.

 

which model car? Sometimes people change coolant hoses and drip coolant in the valley there and then when the manifold comes off coolant drips in. A little coolant is No harm no foul... I could have easily done that working on the 348's or 550 if I was a slob.

 

'89 328. It's in both heads. I'm assuming head gaskets.

 

How is coolant from a leaking head gasket going to end up in an intake passage? Clean the coolant out and pressure test the cooling system. I doubt that any coolant will end up in the intake passages, Leaking head gaskets either leak into the combustion chamber or down the side of the block or into the intake valley area.

Brian Brown
Patrick Ottis Co.

 

Like Brian said, not possible. Could be a cracked head, but both, leaking into more than one port each? Very long odds of that happening.


Try diagnosing it first.

 

Yep, I've been thinking about it all day and looking at the diagrams. Two cracked blocks seem to be long odds like you said, and I was scratching my head about the gasket thing too. There's a small coolant line on top beneath the air box that appears to have been leaking. So perhaps billybob was on to something.

 

I concur. It got dripped in there.

 

So we did a pressure test of the coolant system and watched the intakes to see if any coolant leaked from the heads. Nope. The small coolant hose going from the crossover under the air box to the expansion tank had obviously been leaking and spraying some small amount of coolant under the air box. So we put everything back together, including the new injectors, and ran the car on some back roads with the engine cover off. My buddy sat in the passenger seat with a fire extinguisher in his lap watching to see if the newly installed injectors had any leaking. The car ran great. Throttle response is vastly improved. So I got it good and hot and now we are letting it cool off so that tomorrow we can pull the intake back off and check for coolant. I'm thinking it was the corroded union and hose that was spraying coolant under the air box. Obviously I've replaced both now and will replace the two short hoses coming off the water pump tomorrow.

By the way, after replacing the injectors, the car runs so much better and I've not even attempted to mess with the mixture. Hopefully, I won't have to.

 

Lucky duck!

 

Excellent news.

 

Looks like I wasn't so lucky. There's still coolant in the intake. Gonna borrow a high quality pressure tester from friend at a local shop and try it again rather than the one we rigged up.

 

This may sound a bit ridiculous but you're absolutely sure that it's coolant? In the pic you posted it looks like it may just be oil?

 

It's coolant. It just doesn't show up as well in the picture.

Interesting additional information. I put pressure on the system with a high quality pressure tester. It sat for an hour at 15 psi. No leakage observed and the gauge stayed steady at 15 psi.

 

As I recall...if you remove the intake manifolds and the gaskets(ugh, this is a nasty chore!), re-glue with a THIN coat of 3Bond RTV, and it ought to do it...

It has bee YEARS since I did one of these..but if my senility is not so bad today, memory suffest that a small serpentine coolant passage exists at this parting line and is sealed by a gaske-it fills up with decayed aluminum and looks to be like "sand", which it isn't, clean all of this "gyrotisness" out and make sure you use an OEM gasket(or, you WILL do this again...which is WHY I am remebering this little peculiarity in the first place!)