Cooling system problems, coolant inside the car and oil in the coolant.

[Ndfrspd924]

Hello there,

I'm still fairly new to the board, but here goes. I have a 1991 RS Camaro V6 ATX. I have numerous cooling system problems. The car used to overheat constantly. It never broke down but the engine would smoke a lot at red lights and after i turned it off. You could see the smoke coming out from under the hood. It constantly ran at 230, which i don't know if is normal or not. I looked in the coolant reservoir one day and there were chunks of stuff, it looked like oatmeal. I flushed it out and eventually flushed the whole radiator. I still had problems afterwards. When I flushed it, some of the coolant leaked out onto my driveway... You could tell by the colorful streaks that there was oil in the coolant.

I took it to the shop and they replaced the fan motors, the water pump, and the thermostat. I took it home, and it still ran hot. Now when I look in the coolant reservoir, even just a day after filling it up, its almost empty, and what is in there looks like just watered down oil. I looked under my passenger side mat the other day and to my absolute horror, there was a giant puddle of bright green coolant under it. I scooped it all out, and it was enough to fill up a chinese food container. When it was all scooped out, it was almost black.. No more bright green, it looked like watered down oil again. So my question is, what the hell is going on here? I checked my dipstick and it doesn't look like there is coolant in the oil... But it's obvious that there is oil in the coolant. Does that still mean a blown head gasket? Can i use one of those cooling system sealers from pep boys? Which is the best brand? How much will it cost to fix this problem? Also, a friend told me that because I have no muffler (it fell off a while back), that there is not enough backpressure and that is the reason my head gasket might be blown and I am having these problems. Can that be true?

It's strange because the car really runs pretty well, it accelerates very well and besides the running hot, it doesn't show any signs of running badly. Except horrible gas mileage which is a whole other topic. And a lot of times when I take a corner and accelerate through the turn, coolant shoots out onto my fee. Any help would be much appreciated, thank you very much.

[mcjoslyn]

Okay, here are some thoughts for you. I don't think you have a problem with cracks or blown gaskets. Coolant will have an oily sheen all by itself, especially when it's laying on pavement. And since you don't see any coolant in your oil, I would be surprised if there was a breach anywhere. Your comments about crud in the overflow reservoir make me believe that you had and may still have a badly sedimented and/or corroded system. The high temps and overheating would also make me believe that. The coolant in your interior is probably from a leaking heater core. What will sometimes happen is that if a system is corroded, when you flush it you actually expose some weak spots that the sediment was keeping plugged. All of a sudden you will have leaks that you never had before. Don't put any stop leak in your system, that is just going to make the whole situation worse. I recommend you take it to a radiator specialist and have him pressure check your system. That will get you a lot further than going to the dealer. And tell your friend that he doesn't have a clue. You could run without any exhaust system at all without damaging the engine.