Anyone familiar with the GM 3800 upper intake egr/coolant issue?

cjmatt

cjmatt

Club Member
Long story short, last sunday my brother is up at GVSU with my cousin visiting his gf for the weekend, they try to leave but the car wont turn over. try to jump it, nothing. Im near Lansing and pretty handy, so I go grab a starter from the Autozone, brign it to them, and pop it on, does the same thing. Looks like the motor is seized, so I toss a wrench on the crank and pull the belt hoping maybe its just a frozen a/c compressor or something, crank wiggles slightly but seems locked up. Anyhow, ended up leaving it there and just bringing them home as I didnt have my tools and it was getting late.

Been searching online and talking to a mechanic friend of mine and he said it sounds like the EGR passage cracked the intake allowing coolant in and causing it to hydrolock. So next step is to pull the plugs, see if itll crank, then replace the upper intake.

Has anyone (SEAN) fixed this before? Will leaving this thing sit a week ruin the motor? Any tips or anything? Its got 130k on it, but the body is really nice and itd be a shame to junk such a nice car, plus the kid doesnt really have the cash for a new ride yet as he hasnt found a good job. I just wanna help him out and get it back on the road.
 
i have heard about intakes failing before on 3.8 from warping because they were made from plastic

that sucks ...hope you can figure it out
 
ReiKo said:
If the motor hydrolocked... You're about to be in a world of hurt...
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well, it seems hydrolocked, but it didnt do it while it was running, so i doubt it bent anything up. he drove all the way there, shut the car down, said it ran fine, then it must have cracked and leaked while it was shut off and hot...it was just locked up when he went to leave 2 days later

Can you guys get the dorman upper manifold replacement?
 
Pull the plugs. See how much rust you have going there. I'd pull the plugs and pump the motor down and drian the coolant. See if you can get it to run.
 
Sean said:
Pull the plugs. See how much rust you have going there. I'd pull the plugs and pump the motor down and drian the coolant. See if you can get it to run.
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I was gonna drain the coolant, pull all the plugs, wd40 the cylinders, then change out the oil. after that just crank it over for 20-30 seconds and see if i can loosen it up, pop the plugs back in, see if itll run and not smoke a bearing, then change the intake
 
Sean said:
Pull the plugs. See how much rust you have going there. I'd pull the plugs and pump the motor down and drian the coolant. See if you can get it to run.
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If the car has coolant in it they cylinder will not rust at all now it it has straight water it could. Drain and and fresh plugs with a repair to the leak and it should be just fine it everything is as described.
 
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