I just sprung a leak. Car was fine. It'* been sitting or a bout 5 or 6 days becasue I was waiting for the SC coupler to arrive and plus I've been so busy. Anyways, yesterday I fire her up just to listen to the SC again to hear how bad the rattliong was getting (not too bad yet) and I notice I'm pouring coolant out underneath the car. On to the forum I went to search out my problem.

Read up on the bypass fitting. Well, looked it over again today, started her up, she started leaking bad again, but it'* not coming from the fitting or hose. I let her run for about 3-4 minutes, and noticed some faint white smoke in the exhaust. I smelled it, but did not smell any coolant, just the regular burned fuel odors (so perhaps the concentration of the coolant is not that high). I just checked the oil, it'* nice and clean and not milky (just changed the oil last week too). Since it'* not milky, does this sound more like an intake gasket failure? It'* apparantly burning some coolant, and it'* not in the oil, which leads me to believe this is the case (getting ingested into the combustion chambers from a bad intake gasket). The leak is coming from (if you are standing on the passenger side looking directly over the supercharger area) near the bypass fitting area, just to the left of it. I saw a bunch of gummed up dirt and oil under there (not an easy spot to clean on a regular basis, seeing it'* right behind the alternator and tensioner). Right in that area, where the intake manifold angles up to near the valve cover, I can see a big drop of coolant in there, sitting on the sludge.

So as a recap, does it sound like a typical intake gasket failure that I can take care of?

Or, does this sound like the gasket failure of death, the HEAD Gasket?

This whole thing is boggling my mind becasue the car, since I've owned it, has not eaten any coolant, and has never run any hotter than 200 (once in a while I see 220 in heavy traffic on 85º + days, and that'* with the stock t-stat still). So the car has never overheated on me. What gives?

Also, does Autozone or and of those places sell or stock the intake or head gaskets, or am I going to have to get bent over at the dealership for these, or try GM PartsDirect?

BTW, I don't mind having to pull the blower to check out this leak because I was going to do the coupler anyways.

What'* the best troubleshooting procedure to check out this leak? Meaning, what items should I remove to get in there to verify the culprit leaker?

Thanks in advance.

for the gaskets go to www.napaonline.com or gmpartsdirect.com

I seriously doubt it'* a head gasket. More likely the lower intake gaskets. You'll see the evidence when you pull the SC. You may also want to pull the plugs and see what they tell you.

do you sc'd guys have lower intake gasket failure as bad as we n/a'* do? i haven't really heard about it too much before.

anyhew, does sound like the lower intake. if you're already going to have the blower off, wouldn't be too much more work to get your lowers off and give it some new gasket lovin.

Good luck!

matt

Water Pump or heater hose?

Sounds like when my waterpump went bad... just gushed coolant out of the weep hole.