Ok so heres the current situation.
When I first start the car up in the morning it will idle like and run like @!#$ till its warmed.
And it also has some white smoke coming out of the exhaust just for a little while.
Heres the thing though i checked my plugs and they are fine and my oil isn't all milky what so ever.
But when i take the pressure off the coolant system (i.e. take off radiator cap it will start to idle fine.)
I just recently changed the thermostat hoping it would fix some @!#$ but it didn't do jack.
Another thing too is i will also lose my heat sometimes too.
Also sometimes if it starts to heat up I'll bring it up to about 2500-3000 and it seems like as if the water has an easier time to circulate the coolant cause the temp will go back down to about 195, but sometimes it won't work
and the needle will just stayed buried.
well if anyone can help me that'd be awesome.
Thanks in Advance
Jerry
Well a waterpump isnt going to cause a rough idle. If the water pump was bad it would overheat within 1 mile of driving. But I have seen it before where only part of the impeller broke off, and it was still operating, but not with an entire impeller. So overheating at lower speeds, plus you say you lose your heat, and the engine heats up, I assume at lower speeds.
Since the water pump is driven from the belt that is connected to the crank pulley, at lower speeds, the water pump will spin slower to, this combined with a partillay broke impeller could cause your problem.
To test the head gasket you would do a compression test to see if two adajent cylinders are low. Like if you got
150, 155, 75, 70, then obviously it is blown head gasket.
A blown head gasket will cause white smoke all the time, and the car will be severaly underpowered because you wont have compression in two cylinders.
I'm going to say your rough idle, and your car not having heat and getting to hot are two seperate issues.
Because a blown head gasket will for sure cause misfiring, not just at idle and not just at start up, but all the time
If you solve one problem like the heat, let me know, I'm fairly decent at rough idle diagnoiss.
- 2004 Cavalier - 124k, owned since new
If your head gasket was blown, youd know it from the fact your oil would turn to sludge due to the engine coolant mixing with your oil.. which is exactly hat your head gasket is designed to NOT let happen. As for your rough idle.. im not really sure.. Id get your heater core checked, that seems like a good place to start, and just work from there. GOod luck man.
It depends where the headgasket blows. Sometimes coolant will leak to the outside, sometimes a coolant passage will leak into the cylinder (causing all of your symptoms), sometimes oil will leak to the outside. I would definately put a pressure guage on the cooling system and see if it holds any pressure. I would venture to guess it wont, but you won't find an external leak either. The white smoke out of the exhaust is the coolant getting into your cylinder and buring off.....
Timbo
