new problem with the Lumina

Ok, thank you to those of you who submitted answers to the heat problem question. Now I have a new problem. My husband talked to a mechanic we know before he was going to replace the thermostat and that man said before you do that, maybe you got some air in the hoses and he should bleed them first. So he did this and it made a difference in the heat. So a day or so later, the car was getting hot again. So he checked the radiator and he added fluid it was lacking. A day or two later the car again was hot and agian he needed to add fluid. We then parked the car and a few days later when another friend returned ( happens to be the brother of the mechanic, so he knows a bit too from working with his brother)from hunting and they went out and turned the car on. I have lifter knocks and my oil is now like pudding. He said that we probably warped or cracked a head running the car hot. He said we would need to replace the heads or head gaskets or possibly need a new engine and that my cars engine is a piece of crap. We bought this for a minute, well then we decided to call around to a few shops and find out how much to replace the possible problems. I called a shop that was recommened to us from my father in law and the guy I talked to asked me exactly what happened. I explained everything until I got to the oil like pudding part and he said, I have seen that a thousand times in your car, and 100% of the time it was not the head or the head gasket, it was in fact the intake gasket. My new question is does anyone else have any expierence with this?? I mean this would be cheaper to fix. But my hubby and his mechanic friend both said they dont understand how the water could get into the oil from the intake gasket. The car will have to wait until next week before we can do anything any way so I figured I would see what the rest of you said! THANK YOU IN ADVANCE

I just found another answer to my question on a different post. I think I have the 3100 3.1L engine, but how do I know? And can anyone tell me where to find a diagram on how to replace this? Also, my oil looks more like pudding than chocolate milk. Is it still the same problem?

yeah, intake gaskets go out all the time, almost on schedule in these things.

Engine identification is easy no matter what year: the 3.1/3100 will have either "3.1L Multi Port" or "3100 SFI" stamped into the top of the engine, the 3.8/3800 will just have a plain black intake manifold (some will have a dustcover that says 3800/Series II). I agree with dwalmop, the intake goes out like clockwork on these engines. I'm due for my own Lumina's gasket soon, I'd rather not wait but money's tighter than ever.

That and the sign that you have to keep adding coolant indicates its going SOMEWHERE. Coolant doesn't just disappear; its either getting burned, going to the oil, or going to the ground. If there's no external leak, it's almost certianly the intake gasket. I was quoted $750 for parts & labor from three shops for the job.

Its a fairly detailed process, but the $15 haynes/chilton manuals will tell you step by step how to do it. There's a lot of parts to disconnect and remember, and there's actually some "newbie" instructions on how to remove the heads (the intake has to come off for that, so it's good to that point) elsewhere on the forum.

It might very well be warped heads, but the probability of that is much MUCH lower than the gasket issue. Hopefully you caught it early enough to where nothing major was damaged by coolant (bearings get eaten up quick by this stuff).

Yeah, we stopped driving the car when we realized that the coolant was going someplace. At first he just added water, so I Thought maybe it had evaporated. Then wehn he added acutal anitfreeze, and there was no puddle anyplace, well the lightbulb went on. Thank you guys alot for the help. I was quoted between 4-500 to fix it. That was just one place. The guy on the phone who assured me it was the intake gasket. You guys know your cars, thanks alot.