Aw man coolant everywhere, overheating....damnit.

[mikeb23ft]

Driving my E30 home tonight, noticed some wetness on the driver's floormat and my shoes and stuff. Oh nbd I think maybe I spilled a drink or something.

Wrong. Coolant everywhere. Car pegged the temp needle and smoke came out of the vents. I was like whoa. What's up with that.

So I pulled into a parking spot 2 blocks from my house in front of a bar and got out of the car. Coolant all over the floorboard and my ballin' suede loafers. Pulled the floormat out, soaked up some stuff with a rag, but it was way messy down there, like the car was gettin all menstrual on me. So I went into the bar and got some drinks and spoke with some bros.

I got the car home several hours later. What's going on here gang? I'm thinking something heater core related, hopefully a hose. Am I in serious trouble for overheating this engine? I know if it was a Volvo B230 I'd be looking at probably pulling the head and having it resurfaced after an overheat. Please, please tell me that's not going to have to happen. And where should I start looking for this leak? Bummed.

[gr8skyr]

My guess is a hose going from your firewall to heater core blew.
Fix that, top off your coolant, bleed it, bleed again- don't want any air in your cooling system. Then drive her, and see if she gets hot or you get any water in your oil. If you just got it hot once, might be ok.

If not, sounds like you know the drill.


Had the same thing happen in a 240z, but I imagine e30's could have similar set up?

of course, might be bad heater core, not just a hose. just my two cents.
Good luck with it!

[TurboJake]

Either heater core itself, or the O rings that seal it to the heater valve.

Either way, it's a matter of fixing it, getting it back together, and hoping you didn't crack your head. You could very well be in the need for a new head, or resurfacing yours.

Never, ever let that temp needle get into the red. Or even close.

[mikeb23ft]

Is the head more likely to crack or warp in a situation like this? I feel like cracking would be worse, I've never run into that before. The not fun part of this is going to be waiting around to see if there's fluid exchange. The tension is going to kill me.

If I have to pull the head down the road, maybe it'll be a good time to get some work done anyway, pick up a cam or something.

[jlevie]

Whether the head cracks or not is largely a function of how bad the overheat is. Driving the car for any distance with little to no coolant in the system puts the head at risk of cracking. In this case my guess is that the engine got hot enough to warp the head. Whether it warped enough to cause a head gasket leak won't be known until the cooling system failure has been fixed.

[mikeb23ft]

I'm going to say it was in the red for two city blocks traveling at city traffic speed. I'll just have to wait and see whether or not I've got a leak, then.

In the mean time I think I'm going to try to bypass the heater core by running the pipes that go into the firewall into each other with a plumbing fixture or something. That way I can have a car to drive while I fix this thing.

[jlevie]

Do not loop the hoses, plug them. If you loop the hoses part of the coolant flow will not go through the radiator and the engine may run hot.

[mikeb23ft]

Do not loop the hoses, plug them. If you loop the hoses part of the coolant flow will not go through the radiator and the engine may run hot.

Thanks for the tip!

[jlevie]

I should have added that two blocks is way too far to drive the car with the gauge in the red. If the needle reaches the 3/4 mark you turn off the engine immediately and pull off the road. Any further driving risks damage to the head gasket or head. And be glad you aren't in a later model BMW with an aluminum block. On those a significant overheat pulls the head bolt threads out of the block and means a replacement engine.

[mikeb23ft]

I don't actually know how long it was in the red. I didn't notice until steam came out of the vents. I fear the worst...