Can anyone give me an idea what a garage might charge to replace this gasket? Bought my son this white tricked out 99 and we probably were so impressed by the car I didn't check it it out real well. Has brown goop in the rad so that should have been a clue. Started overheating couple months ago. I replaced the waterpump and thermostat and went thru a series of fills to get the air out. It was fine until a week ago and started overheating again. Jacked it up and there was coollant on the undercarriage. Took off the belt and behind the tensioner on the block under the water pump bolts it looks like rusty water has been weeping out between the timing cover and the block (not the plastic elbow). I can do this job but what scares me is to take all the crap off the front of the motor and get to taking the crank pully off and not be able to do that, special tool, tight as hell, etc. Secondly, is it anyones opinion that this is the result of a bigger problem? Like extreme pressures in the coolant from??? or is this a typical problem with the 3800? The car runs really strong, kind of shocking really for a v6. My son says it eats mustangs for lunch and poo's rice grinders.

 

how does/has the oil looked? just need a balance puller to get it off. not that hard. time consuming, im sure one of the guys on here thats done a water pump change on the 3.8 can talk you through it. need to make sure your not looking at a blown headgasket, gunk in radiator could be stop leak to cover something up to get the sale. or could be old antifreeze. flush the cooling system for sure.

 

^^^^ What craby said! It's not that hard to remove the stuff from the front. I think I would at least do a pressure test of the coolant system with one of the kits you can pick up at the local parts store to see if it indicates a blown head gasket before doing it though. If you do decide to replace the gasket, might as well spend the $5 and replace the L shaped plastic piece.

 

The oil isn't milky and seems to be ok. It has 160k miles on it. I re-torqued the waterpump and timing cover bolts according to my screwy Haynes manual. Got a 7lb radiator cap to lessen the system pressure, still seaping. I'll be stopping by the local garage to get the tiered what-if estimates and go from there. I could probably do the job, just too many like this from the past that remind me of the extra crap you run into. If it's the heads it might join the Pontiac yard art I already have. Thanks for everyones comments.