I have a 97 Z LT1 just aquired. I drove vehicle about 10 miles, overheated because temp gauge wasn't working and when I stopped on highway, it died. I'm no stranger to vehicles, have had three different 69 Camaro's. Had car towed to house, assumed water pump went bad and replaced it along with optispark due to what I've read on them getting wet. Now, car won't start, getting fuel, has new water pump, new optispark, but one of the things i've never seen is car is pushing water out of overflow tank when I try and start the car when cold. Car has not ran in one week while I've replaced above mentioned parts. Not sure why water spews out of overflow tank and no, the lines are not crossed going to overflow tank and water pump from radiator. Has anyone seen or had this problem and some advice would be much appreciated, thanks! Car has 76,000 original miles but has been sitting for some time. When I drove it, everything seemed fine, shifted fine, ran fine until died. Now sitting in my garage with about $350 dollars and not running.

 

A non running car spewing coolant out of the over flow tank is most likely a blown head gaskets. Its getting pressure from somewhere and the only pressure in a cold engine is oil pressure and cylinder compression.

Most likely the car had a minor blown head gasket when you bought it. The cylinder pushed engine gas into the head to block the coolant from getting to the whole head as you where driving it home. Think of it like trapped air. Anywhere the coolant can't reach because of the trapped air gets insanely hot. This heat wipes out what was left of the head gasket. Hopefully the engine survived but you really would know for sure until you get the head gaskets fixed.

If you want to verify this just pull the plugs. At lease one is going to be really clean. If its a bad as you described most likely coolant is going to run out of the plug hole.

FYI- when I was a mechanic I would diagnose the beginning of a blown head gasket and people would even say "I will just sell it" Anytime I look at a car for myself or a friend I go with a coolant pressure tester to check the pressures mostly for blown head gaskets.

Good luck and welcome to the forum.

 

Thanks for the reply. That all makes sense!

 

Please post in the 4th gen tech section with any more questions. A couple of the admins has LT1 back grounds along with a lot of members. You will get more traffic there because many of our hardcore guys don't ever post or even look in these folders.

This area is more of the meet and great section. No worries either way.