93 Corsica...overheats, shuts off, no bad codes?

93 Corsica 3.1 V6
128,000

This car started with an odor. Like it was running rich. The car also felt like it was missing. The car sat for a few weeks until we had the money for everything it needed. In the meantime someone left the lights on and killed the battery. My fiancee gave it a new battery, tune-up, new air filter and oil change. He also put in a new thermostat.

At this point we also put in a brand new radio. Car ran fine in the drive way so we took it for a test drive. The car was low on fuel so we decided to take it to the gas station to try it out. It felt much better. Until we began climbing a hill. (We live in the mountains of PA so these hills are pretty big) The car started to overheat and it felt like it wasn't getting any fuel. Even though it still had about an 8th of a tank. I thought maybe because we we're on an incline it was unable to get gas. My fiancee went to get the gas can back at the house. He put the gas in and we got it to the gas station. The car didn't feel right but was at least running.

While at the gas station we noticed anti-freeze leaking from the car. It looked like it was coming from the bottom rad hose so we took it to the local mechanic right then and there. He got the hose and when removing it found the bottom of the rad was cracked. So new hose and rad.

When they were done with it I tried to drive it home. It stalled out on me once during town driving and the temp was climbing. Seemed odd with a new rad and all. Climbing the hills to get the car home was impossible. The temp climbed higher and higher and eventually I was unable to get the car above 20 miles per hour. I pulled it over and she shut off. I was unable to get her to restart at first and she didn't restart until a few hours later.

Because of the horrible smell of gas and the temp I figured it was the catalytic converter.
Our usual mechanic towed it to his shop. He has has the car on the computer 3 times. Not one bad code.
He removed the c.c. and put a straight pipe on and this didn't solve the problem. He checked fuel pressure which he says is fine. He has checked sensors and they are fine.
He is now suggesting that I come up with a price limit in my head and quit when we reach it because he has no idea what is wrong and he now has to try to figure it out piece by piece.

I don't want to lose the car. We just put over 1000 dollars of work into in August. The car is in good shape and we simply can't afford another one. Sorry for the long problem description, but I thought it may spark some ideas. Please help me

Melissa

Sounds like you need a lot of help. An awful lot of possible problems, hope other here will chime in on this. To start with, never run a GM vehicle below 1/4 tank. Their gauges do not accurately show amount of gas you have. When you have less than 1/4 tank you risk running out of gas or damaging fuel pump. As far as overheating, with a new radiator that leaves a bad or incorreclty installed thermostat, bad water pump, bad electric fan(this would show up when using a/c or idleing), a bad radiator cap (suggest using a STANT brand cap) or possibly a bad temp guage. How high does the temp guage actually go?? My son's 94 always ran 1/2-3/4 where my 91 ran 1-4/ 1/3 of guage.Always best to look at the 1/4 mark as being almost out of gas. Maybe a leak somewhere yet or even a large air bubble in your cooling system. None of these should be horribly expensive to replace or fix. The stalling could be due to failing ignition module (stalls when hot when failing), or even a crank sensor(with or without codes). Both are common.. The ignition module will not set a code. Possible that fuel pump could be damaged and failing when hot, but, your mechanic should be able to test for that. Other possible causes of stalling would be TCC solenoid, but this does not sound like it. When it causes trouble the symptoms are that is shifts OK until hot, then when slowing down the car shakes and shutters until you stop and it stalls. Starts OK but stalls as soon as put into gear(until it cools off). If your car won't restart I would bet the ignition module is failing. Your mechanic can remove it, and get it tested at most parts stores such as NAPA, Advance, etc. These run about 85-100 bucks plus labor, and the crank sensor will run anywhere from 25-35 bucks as a rule(they can vary). the fuel pump will set you back an easy hundred bucks plus labor. The overheating, well, hard to say. A water pump- 30 bucks plus labor, radiator cap (cheap) a few bucks, electric fan, not sure but should be less than a hundred bucks, fan sensor much less, and of course labor will be a bit for sure. Who put the thermostat in? If it was incorrect stat or put in backwards it can cause trouble. I think you have two or more issues here, but that is my opinion. Labor will be the main problem here. To rule these things out will take time. Expect an easy 300 bucks for a crank sensor and ignition module replacement(including parts) as an example. I can't advise you how much this will cost. But I would fix it. These cars are still easier to deal with than most. Any other ideas out there???