Past 2 weeks. 2 maybe 3 cups of coolant. It's not on the ground, not on the passenger side floor, it's not blowing past the pressure cap, at temperature I can still squeeze the hoses, not in the oil either. I have not had time to pull the plugs and check the combustion chambers for steam cleaning or to run the liquid tester. HGs where done 2-3000 miles ago. I do get the occasional pending 304 code, it has gone hard code once in the past 2 weeks.

Any other suggestions?

 

Is there any sign of coolant on the left-hand side valve cover under the throttle body heater?

 

Get a pressure tester and see if the system holds pressure.

 

TB heater is dry as a bone. Pressure test shows nothing. Cyl 4 is wet and clean. figures. Yet, the plug looks normal and shows no signs coolant. It's never been overheated... so I'm kinda at a loss.

 

If #4 is cleaner than the others it being cleaned, seeing your thrist for coolant, i would guess steam cleaned.

 

Nope. Dry As a bone. Cyl4 is wet though. Not steam cleaned yet, but wet.

 

Exactly. It's in progress. Just need to figure out how it's getting in there.

I figure something cracked, a liner slipped, or the headgasket gave out. I have no clue. That's just off the cuff. The little woman is trying to convince me not to fix it and just trade it in.

 

Remove the upper intake and rocker cover and retorque those 4 bolts, what have you got to lose at this point? A couple hours and a little black RTV?

 

You have a point. I'll order a new upper plenum gasket.

Now for the dumb question... how can coolant make its way into cyl4 via the intake manifold? I don't remember what the mating surfaces and ports look like... only reason I ask.

Thanks a bunch!

 

It doesn't. The only way coolant gets to #4 is around the liner or cracked block at a head bolt. The middle two cylinders are siamesed, coolant doesn't enter heads, no ports. It flows through the block around these two on both sides of block.