Foam in my radiator...

[steven23]

Hi,earlier today I started up my '89 firebird 2.8l to pull it around back for some tinkering,first thing I checked was the radiator to check the coolant level and noticed a little bit of foam... I've never seen this before so I did some searching and didnt come up with much except on another board I read that it could mean a cracked block,head or bad intake/head gasket. After that I took the car around a few blocks and back home to see the foam had reached the top at the cap... The oil looks new and no signs of water anywhere. The fluid in the radiator looks ok but a little light on the coolant amount compared to water but no browning or odd coloration...

I talked to the guy I got the car from and said its got a new radiator cause the old one was leaking and they used stop leak stuff which might have left residue causing the foam... I have no idea what it could be so maybe someone here can shed some light on this. Could this be true?

I took the car out for a long drive earlier today and it got up to 220'ish (1/2 way on the gauge) but never went over. The car drove just fine and sounded normal and held oil pressure just fine. I'll let the car cool down and check the oil here in a little bit when I go out to put the T-tops on...

I love this car,its freakin awesome I really hope its not a bad gasket cause I dont think thats something my mechanical skills (or lack there of) can handle and I cant even imagine how expensive a shop would be...

Edit: Just checked it,oil looks and feels like new oil and not a single trace of water. Coolant looks normal as well... Could it acutally be a detergent/stop leak stuff and something a flush from a shop could fix?

Thanks,any advice/opinions are greatly appreciated...

[Rob Bell]

Re: Foam in my radiator...

I could see flushing the cooling system just to make sure it's nice and clean and has fresh coolant in there.... and you'll get rid of the stop leak stuff. Then if it starts doing it again, you'll know something's up.