Hi,

I just brought a 1997 camaro z28 30th anniversary. Had it delivered and I started it up and after a few minutes the low coolant light came on and the coolant temp guage moved up to the last white line (about 3 quaters on the guage). Checked the coolant level which was fine. Opened the oil cap and found white stuff around the cap. I thought great its got a blown head gasket. Just had a mechanic come around and do a block test which came back fine.

With the radiator cap off, coolant was spewing out the radiator. He continued to add water to it and said there is probably an air lock, or thermastat problem. Car continues to get hot, but the guage doesnt go into the red zone. It just sits at the 3 quater line. While he was adding water, the guage would fluctuate, and move up and down from the middle where it should be, up to just before the red area (but never went in the red area)

I want to bleed the system, but have been told by people not to put normal water in the system. Surely its ok to put normal water in just for a while to determine if it is an air lock?

How worried should I be?

 

Since selling your car is not a reasonable way to fix a problem every time you have one, I would start with a rad flush and thermostat. Grab a bottle of rad flush, a thermostat and a few bottles of some good quality coolant. If your mechanically inclined at all it should take you less than 2 hours to do. Your thermostat is right on top of the water pump, which is directly below your intake elbow and is very easy to swap out. I just did this to mine on the weekend and it took care of my low coolant light. Its a good starting point anyways, if it doesn't fix your problem you can dive in deeper from there

*Apparently someone deleted that other guys post, so nevermind my first sentence.

 

Thanks for your response.

The coolant in there was orange stuff - i assume GM dex cool. How important is it to put this type of coolant in after the flush? Could I just use a normal type of coolant? green or red? Where I'm from its hard to come by the proper GM stuff.

TIA

For the flush, do I just remove the lower radiator hose and let it drain out? I've done flushes before but not on this type of car. I'll do some more research regarding this.

 

You can but a kit to backflush the system.

 

You could remove the lower rad hose, im not sure about 97's but on my 94 I have a little tap on the bottom of the rad, passenger side. Different rad flush's might call for different methods, but with mine i added the bottle of flush, ran the car up to temperature for about 10 minutes, then dumped the fluid, flushed the rad with water (hot) then closed the tap and re-filled with green 50-50 coolant. Be sure to have your heater on when you do this to allow coolant to flow in and out of the heater core. Add coolant as needed and use the bleeder screws to let the air out. I imagine you can find a better description in the stickies on how to do a flush and to bleed the system, does anyone know a link?

 

This sounds very similar to what I experienced with my 95 last week. It's making me wonder though, does my car have a "low coolant light"? If it does, it didn't come on. I had the coolant low though and my gauge was at the 3/4 mark as well. I also had what you described with the oil. I haven't had a block test though yet nor pressured the coolant system and do suspect head gaskets.

 

thanks for your replies. i will flush the system tomorrow and replace the thermistat. ill probably just use normal red coolant as dex cool is hard to come by, i assume it wont matter.

can someone confirm to me the thermostat location. is it just a matter of removing the upper radiator hose and unscrewing the thermostat housing behind it? this is a v8 i understand its in a different location to the v6. thanks again.

 

Thermostat is right under the air intake, top of the water pump (you can't miss it). Make sure you get one for the LT1, and not a regular SBC. Ours are special (just like everything else with the engine).

As others have said, try a flush. A Peak kit is under $5 and work well as I've used them. You can use water from a hose to preform a back flush and remember to follow the instructions on the back of the packaging. You however do not need to cut a hole in a heater line. Follow one of the heater lines from the firewall and find the "T" that it comes to. Remove the connector there and just tap in at that spot. Use sealer tape on all the threads and put rags of some sort around the opti-spark to prevent it from getting wet. Also make sure you get ALL of the old coolant out. Our radiators have a drain **** so you can use that as well as disconnecting the upper/lower hoses. Remove the knock sensor and the temp sensor on the drivers side head as they'll remove much of the coolant from the block and heads.

When you are done flushing and refilling the cooling system, do not forget to bleed it. There are I believe three (or two) bleed screws. One on the thermostat housing, another on the throttle body and I believe a third one on the "T" I was talking about earlier.

I will also provide a link to a website that will come in handy.

Here you go:

4th Gen LT1 F-body Tech Articles

Edit: Is Dex-Cool really that hard to find? Any major auto parts store (even Wal-mart) carries it. If you can't get a hold of that, a all makes, all models, 50/50 pre-mixed will work okay.

 

Thats a great help! Thanks!

Here in New Zealand walmart doesn't exist, and all the auto parts stores don't seem to stock dex-cool. I can get it online but then I have to wait a few days for delivery. I'll flush system and change fluid, thermostat tomorrow and let you know the results. Fingers crossed!

In the mean time, I have attempted to bleed the system and the low coolant light is now intermittent, still running hot though.

Does the oil pressure reading in this picture look a little low to you?

 

Oil pressure looks fine to me.