Problem starting and idleing

[zreon]

Hey guys, I'm having a bit of a problem with my mx-3. First off I'm in FL and we are having an unusually cold winter this year that is bringing out lots of problems in our cars. So I was driving out to help my sister who had broken down on the side of the road when I noticed a strange noise coming from my engine, like a loose bolt or something. Then I noticed my temp gauge was past the top line. I immediately pulled over and popped the hood and a bunch of steam poured out. I took off my radiator cap and checked my reservoir and everything seemed fine. I let it sit a few minutes and tried to crank it and it turned over, but really hesitated to actually start. When it finally started, it idled really rough and died. So I waited a few more minutes before attempting to start it up again. I was only about a mile or 2 away from the next exit, so I thought I could just drive there slowly. Once I started moving, the temperature dropped to around the half way mark for a couple minutes. As I approached the exit, it shot way up again and I heard that strange loose bolt noise again. As I was turning into a gas station, the car died and I coasted in.

After checking some fluids and such, I noticed my engine was 2 quarts low on oil and the cooling system was just about empty. I switched over to synthetic oil about 1,000 miles beforehand, and I'm having a felling that has something to do with my low oil problem. After I topped everything off, it was running fine for the next 30-40 miles when I noticed it was starting to overheat again, but no strange noise. On my way home I had to stop a couple times to top off the cooling system.

So today I took a look at it and it appears my radiator is leaking on my driver side, as well as a drip up by my intake right under my distributor. Also I can hear a high pitch noise sometimes after I let it warm up and shut off. So I've come to the conclusion that I need a new radiator. I'm not sure where to start with the cranking / idling problem though. I just changed my wires last week because one fell apart on me, and my spark plugs should be fine. I will check them tomorrow when it is light out again. Any other things you guys can suggest I check? Do you think the synthetic oil was a bad idea?

[PilotSmack89]

Nothing wrong with switching to synthetic, but if you're down 2 quarts (which is about half of the oil that engine is capable of carrying), you've got an oil leak somewhere.

As far as the radiator, i completely agree that a new one is best. But you said that you have a leak under the disty, so you may want to do new hoses at the same time.

The cranking/idling problem could be related to the loss of oil loss somewhere along the line. Take a peek to see if you can see any suspicious looking fresh oil stains in the engine bay.

[zreon]

Well I popped off all of my spark plug wires today to see if there was any oil or anything down there. I just replaced the wires less then 2 weeks ago due to a faulty cylinder 3 wire. Well when I went to pull number 3 off again, the wire pulled apart and the bottom part was stuck in the cylinder again. When I pulled it out with some pliers, I noticed it was melted a little bit. Any indication what this would mean? Bad head gasket possibly?

Also, I noticed if I fill my cooling system up completely, it immediately starts leaking on the drivers side once I start the car. However, if I drive around 45mph without accelerating too hard, the engine will not overheat once about 2 liters has drained from the system. I'm not sure if my thermostat isn't opening when I'm not going fast or what is going on.

This morning I jumped on the interstate for about 2 minutes, and my car began to overheat. I opened the hood and steam came pouring out again. When I took the radiator cap off, water came gushing out the top. However, I drove for a little under 2 hours today without exceeding 45mph and didn't have any heating issues at all. Any ideas what this could be? Regardless, I feel I will need a new radiator, but I won't really have any extra cash until my next paycheck. Anything I could possibly try bypassing for the time being?

[PilotSmack89]

I know there was this putty-type material you could get (cant remember the name of it off the top of my head), but you could use it to TEMPORARILY patch the crack in the radiator. I stress that it's temporary, and that regardless, you need to take it easy on the car until you can get the radiator replaced.

Melted spark plugs means they're running too hot (or too hot for that particular plug... make sure you're using the right plugs). There are a few causes of hot plugs, but with you're oil loss/overheating problem, im not surprised that the plugs are getting cooked.

I'm kinda interested to see where all that oil went. Find the cause of that yet?

[Tunes67]

How many miles are on your engine/car? Synthetic oil is very good when your engine is fresh or has been very well maintained. But at higher mileages.. it tends to get past rings and seals far easier than conventional oil. Burning 2 quarts in 1000 miles does seem excessive though and you should be able to see some slight blue tinge to your exhaust if it is getting past your rings. Believe it or not.. a easy check of this is to have an emission test done on the car. If your hydrocarbons are high on the test.. you are most likely burning oil.

Now for the radiator issue. The putty on the outside isnt a bad idea, as Pilot pointed out though it will be temporary at best and WILL fail at a unpredictable time. Thats assuming you are able to fill all the gaps with it to begin with. Whatever you do though.. DONT put any form of stopleak into the coolant. This stuff eats waterpumps and blocks coolant passages and makes a general mess of the entire cooling system.. I speak from experience on this one unfortunately I had a similar leak issue on a Subaru XT I once had.. tried that cause I couldnt afford the radiator at the time. The reason it overheats is because the system cant maintain proper pressure and this affects coolant flow. Thats why you get hot spots of coolant cause it isnt making its way to the radiator as it should be. Its also possible that your Thermostat could be sticking closed or partially closed. This would also cause you to overheat and might explain why at lower speeds you dont seem to have as much issue overheating.

If you dont have water in your oil or oil in your water you can do a compression check to reveal a headgasket leak. If you have a failed headgasket near one of the cylinders, it can pump exhaust gases into your cooling system. This increases the pressure in the cooling system and could be what caused your radiator to start leaking. A radiator shop can check the coolant for exhaust chemicals to see if that is true. But a compression check is easier and something that can be done at home.

Bottom line here is that there is no real simple cheap fix for this issue and the more you drive it.. the more potential damage to the engine you can do.

Tunes67