Hi, I'm not new here but I hardly ever post. I just look for stuff and read up usually. I did search around threads and posts about my problem and couldn't find the direct answer... just bits and pieces that look like they may be my answer... anyways here's the story...

I was driving over to a buddy's house and my MAF was acting up like it had been the last couple days here (the CEL was on) and there (well I'm saying its my MAF because I had the same symptons before and swapped out with a used MAF but I guess it either A. got dirty again or B. was dying) so then on my way over the MAF starts acting up and I can't rev past 2800-2900 rpm and I'm just cruising as slow as possible (I'm in an automatic) just so I can at least make it to my friends house and park it there till I could fix it... So as I'm exiting the freeway and I slow down, the revs drop and my car stalls and shuts off. I try to turn it on again and the start is really rough and kept choking so i gave it a bit of gas to get the revs up and the car starts and then i hear a loud *POP* in the engine bay and white smoke/steam comes out from under the hood.. and I'm like oh god... but the car continues to run (my friend was another half mile) and made this weird grating type noise like when a diesel truck is at a stop, so I kept driving it and then more white smoke came out and I took a look at the temp gauge and the car was overheating like mad so I stopped at my friends place to park. On my way there at a stop light it started dropping revs again and i power braked it to keep the revs up or else the car was gonna stall again.

After I park it, I let it cool off for several hours and went out to check it. There was coolant all over the place when I lifted the hood, the reservoir was empty, and the radiator looked like it was probably empty. I checked the oil dipstick and it looked muddy and dark and it looked like it was the "chocolate milk" sign. I went on .org to check if it was the head gasket but I saw that there were other answers to the problem like the water pump (which hadn't been replaced in the last 100K miles or so I'm thinking since I got it as a hand-me-down), ects, t-stat, and things like that. (which I don't think have been replaced in a long time either) I tried to make it home in it which was like 6 miles.. and the car overheats once after about 3 miles on the freeway and I exit... then I hit a stop light, it stalls again, i re-start it and park somewhere to cool it off in which i waited an hour and half and then proceeded to make it home in one piece. I didn't notice any leaks because of where I park its already dark with oil, coolant, and water leaks but I checked today to see if there was and i didn't see anything. I'm sorry I'm kind of a noob about these things thats why I'm always on here to try to learn and do DIYs.

A lot of the basic symptoms point to the head gasket... what do you guys think? How can I make sure of this? Is it worth the fix? I just got a bunch of stuff in the car fixed in the last year like new radiator, rebuilt trans, new starter, tune-up, new tires, brakes, etc. I've probably spent well over what the car is worth and it looks like engine swap might be the best idea in this scenario... tell me what you guys think. please help!!

My car is a 97 Maxima with 272k miles and was running strong till this happened. If costs look like its gonna be too much, I might just sell it as is... my poor baby.

***I posted this in the noob thread because I couldn't start a thread but I PM'd a fellow member on here named Trini Boom and he said that my problem is most likely the water pump. I'm looking for more opinions just to make sure that I fix everything at once or if its a hopeless fix or not. Tell me what you think guys!! Thanks!***

 

it def. sounds like a hg, but... was the smoke blowing from the pipe or from the front? has the thermostat been changed recently? when did you notice that it was overheating? have you checked the oil again? did the car drive like it had no power? did you check your radiator for a crack?

 

Your not giving enough info here other then the incident; search for symptoms, perform some checks, and post the results that way we'll be able to help you better.

 

Well the symptoms point to either head gasket or water pump... I would lean towards head gasket, but that's mainly because of the chocolate milk description of your oil... that + the smoke are tell-tale head gasket signs...

 

The smoke was coming out of the front... I noticed that it was overheating about 1 minute after. I checked my oil again and its the same result... its dark muddy and watery and all over the dipstick. There is a bit of power loss but not too significant. No crack in radiator, no leaks, the radiator is less than 10K miles old. I started the car and checked if any white smoke would come out of the exhaust but there was none. When I started the car, it started up fine, no rough start and but it idled around 950 RPM on PARK. There's no milky white substance under the Motor/Oil Cap... radiator is like near empty because it exploded all over the engine bay from before... there's water in the reservoir but just a little bit. I checked the radiator hose and looks like there's no problem. As for the t-stat, I have no idea when it was last replaced... probably not within the last 60K miles cuz thats how long I've had the car.

What else can I do to check?

Any members of the org from Orange County to help me with this in person also?

 

Sounds like head gasket since your coolant seems to be in your oil now. You keep saying the coolant exploded everywhere, where did it exactly explode from?

 

^^^ well not exactly exploded.. that was my only way of explaining it... because after the the loud "pop!" and stuff. I pulled over at my friends place and there was coolant all over the place... maybe like a cup's worth... splashed around on top to the engine, radiator, and on the right side of the engine bay (facing towards the car)

 

^^ where did it come from?

 

freakin beats me man!! If I knew I'd say something...

 

headgasket.. how would a water pump cause this? unless it failed and caused overheat...


www.car-part.com get urself another engine..

 

^^^ That's why i think it might be the water pump because its probably old and I dont even know when it got replaced or not... I'm just hoping its not the head gasket and is there any other tests I can run to confirm this? When I start up the car, and put it in to drive to reverse it into my garage the car ran like normal but of course it would start to heat up shortly after but i turned it off.

 

did you fill it up with some new coolant? look on the side of the engine by the timing chain cover. do you see any wet spots? (location of the water pump)

 

Yeah I put some new coolant yday but not really any, should i fill up the radiator halfway or something?? I was thinking about doing a flush... I'll check for the wet spots near the timing chain cover.

 

the radiator has to be full, along with the reservoir. make sure everything is cold when you fill it up
pop the hood, start the car and look for things, making sure it's not overheating (get a friend to watch the needle).

 

thanks a lot man... I gotta go pick up more coolant then... should I do a flush before hand? or just fill it up? oh and what will the results prove??? failed water pump?

 

dude.. first get rid of the oil in the engine.. god knows how the bearings look now..

then just take a garden hose and fill up the radiator and see what happens.. dont waste your money on coolant..

if there is water in the oil its a headgasket.. do a quick compression test

 

^^ how will I know if its just the water pump?? and maybe even the t-stat?

 

If its the water pump, you will either see antifreeze leaking on the passenger floor engine side or on the engine itself. Also, the water pump can leak internally and will not show any leakage on the engine or on the floor. As for the t-stat, when you fill your system back up, let it get to regular operating temperature and feel the upper and lower radiator hoses. They should be about the same temperature feel. If the upper hose is much hotter than the lower hose, your t-stat is stuck closed which is preventing coolant flow through the engine.

 

IF you really want to know if your t-stats is really working, your gonna have to have the heat on full blast and on defrost position and try to see if you can feel the heat coming out hot. If the air is coming out cold and the H/C needle is not rising to the normal temp than it's your t-stats thats gone bad. DON'T FORGET TO FILL THE CAR UP WITH COOLANT ALL THE WAY. I drove my car with a bad t-stat in the winter and the heat on full blast i was getting nothing but cold air and the damn car was drivin from home to work 15-20 drive still the H/C needle was at C. P.S. If your car has a blown headgasket you will notice power loss and your oil will look milky and you will smell coolant and you will see whitle cloud of smoke coming out of your tail pipe. If your waterpump was bad you will see a leak from the timing chain area. Find out whats wrong and get back ASAP.

 

Thanks I'm going to do all these checks tomorrow, thanks a lot... thanks for being more descriptive on what to check... ppl here on org are freakin awesome

 

And try not to help kill the engine more by driving it with no coolant and smoke blowing everywhere, you'll end up doing more damage. Compression test should tell for sure, also your radiator may be shot, when the water/coolant gets to temp it will leak out of that rubber seal around the top so don't be surpized.

 

Wooot. 3.5 Swap.

I think its the water pump.

 

After driving it the rest of the way to your buddies, and then home, It doesn't matter if the water pump is at fault. It ran out of water, we know that. The HG is toast after driving it as much as you did with the noises and "white smoke" (called steam BTW). It doesn't take long at all to warp a head or deck surface after running out of water.

 

Water pump seals usually go faulty and cause fluid to leak past down into weep hole and onto the ground. Never hrd of faulty pump causin milk oil.

Milky oil is HG. but only one way to be sure. Compression test.