heh, I'm back to where I began

[rice]

Whats going on here? does god hate me? is god testing me? when things seems like they were going fine, this sh!t has to happen again. I popped the hood and glance at my overflow tank, wtf, its down to LOW! motherF*****! i opened the rad cap and its low too. Jeez....i glance at the bottom of the waterpump and there's some coolant below it, by the oil drain tank near the block.

*sigh....Im tired of the same crap happening over again, i just lost $500 last week to the car because it overheated on me, and my relative mechanic replaced the waterpump, timing belt, and some other crap, or at least he said, and i paid him. No signs of a blown headgasket just yet, no white smoke or milky coolant, it has to be the same fcken waterpump gasket!! I thought he changed it though, and the waterpump DOES look new. I'm gonna take it back to him this week-end and see what he says.

My key is still stuck in my ignition, it just wont come out no matter how hard I push and pull, mother F*****....

IM SICK OF THIS SH!T! i'm a poor college student living by myself, and my job is not the best, I have no money to spend on this sh!t, thats why I bought a $3,000 corolla in the first place so i dont have to spend hundreds on repairs this quick! it hasn't even been a year yet and the car is gonna cost me more than its worth

I fcken hate this.....so many bad things have happened to the car, and i've spent almost $1,000 on repairs on it already, why is this happening to me....Im not rich or anything and the car is just asking for too much, 1994 DX 1.8L 5-Spd 160K miles

I'm back to where I began when I started college, $0 in the bank, empty refrigerator, striving to survive

pray for me

[Flashmn]

You know... I'm having a very hard time saying, didnt I tell you so. To change the head gasket when you had the waterpump etc changed.

Chances are its not the waterpump gasket, even if it doesnt have that, they can put it together with silicone, without problems, but I'm pretty sure they put the gasket on.

i glance at the bottom of the waterpump and there's some coolant below it, by the oil drain tank near the block.

Dried coolant, drops, or was it running down. Coolant has a funny way of being wet for a long time, especially near an engine block.

No signs of a blown headgasket just yet, no white smoke or milky coolant, it has to be the same fcken waterpump gasket!!

Because a head gasket might not give those symptoms put. Oil only becomes milky when the oil and water jackets leak into each other, White smoke only if its combusting the water, however a cat converter can also mask it.
Remember when you said you had brown coolant, well that was oil in your coolant.
I've had headgaskets blow without any of the normal symptoms, only way I figured out it was the head gasket was that I was losing water and the overflow was acting weird.

But hey you chose not to listen to me or the other few people, so you pretty much brought this on yourself, as for being a poor college kid, then you should listen to people, because remember when I told you that youd end up getting cheaper off getting the headgasket replaced at the same time, I wasnt lying, also you could be assured that the headgasket wouldnt be a problem, now its just guessing. Plus 500 bucks for timingbelt and a waterpump change is a ripoff, imho.

[rice]

UPDATED: went out and checked the waterpump and its leaking, right now as we speak its leaking, but this time it's different from the first. Before the new waterpump, it only leaks when the car is hella cold, this happens when i leave the car outside overnight, next morning it will have a nice green puddle. But this one leaks while the car is WARM and running and stops when the car cools down (it'll probably leak overnight, i'll check tomorrow)

After driving around for 30+ mins, I opened the hood and also noticed steam from that area, I went under the car and took a look, the steam is coming from the dripping coolant coming in contact with the engine block and around that area, almost exactly the same thing happening when the car overheated in the first place, steam was coming from exactly the same place

[freakinbox]

thats why I fix my own damn car. or only take it to someone I REALLY trust. I took my car into the shop I am doing my co-op at because I trust their skill and I trust them!

Hell can't go wrong when they got me the $64 part for $50 and only charged 120 labour rather than 160

[94_Rolla_Guy]

dont freak out yet take the car back and see what your mechanic is willing to do, im sure he will be reasonable, just be nice about it when you go. Shit happenes and thats the way it goes.

Lately its wierd because everyone seems to be having the problems ive already worked through on my car, keys stuck, mysterious coolant leaks, oil burning.....

[kamesama980]

white lithium grease does WONDERS for lock cylinders...door and ignition. put the long tube in the spray nozzle, jam it in the cylinder, and spray till it comes out. then put the key in/out and turn it both ways till your arm gets tired and its really easy. WD40 runs and dries really quick, so dont use it if you want it to last. as for the engine...at least the coolant wasnt empty. at least it hasnt stalled when your 30 miles past the asscrack of nowhere. believe me i feel your pain about having stuff break time and time again. thats why A. i do things myself, and B. didnt get a domestic at the same price. yea its a pain in the arse, but being a fellow broke college student, fix it yourself, and LISTEN to people on the forum. all too often someone shows up, explains a problem, 10 people give them the same response, and they still go "yea it could be, but i think its....". i dont know about the other problems youve had, but it sounds like you didnt listen to well to poeple here giving you good advice. let me also tell you from experience, when they say "reccommended to replace X and Y part when replacing Z part" DO IT..and make sure its done right

[hooRAH]

Originally Posted by Flashmn

Remember when you said you had brown coolant, well that was oil in your coolant.

Flashmn,

I agree with all of your other advice, but I'm not sure about this one. I've seen at least a handful of people claim that the resivoir has brown coolant in it, as well as my girlfriends.

I changed the coolant about 2 years ago, and when I did it, it was brown again within a week. I took off the resivoir for something last week, flushed the thing out, replaced it with bright neon green coolant (100% too, figured a little more concentration would help since its probably low on the rust protectants). It was again brown within a week. I have a feeling that it might be rusting due to cheap autozone coolant not protecting well enough, or mabye there was a lot of rust in there to begin with, but it seems to be a common problem, at least more than a handful of people. That doesn't mean its ok....just that I've seen it before.

And yes, $500 for a waterpump and timing belt is a ripoff.

[silkydraws]

My experience with the stuck key was that the safty lock inside the lower dash that connected by cable to the shifter....was stuck. I took apart lower dash, pulled the cable end down and off tye wired it to the right position and solved it always seeming to stick when I needed to lock my car.

[Flashmn]

I changed the coolant about 2 years ago, and when I did it, it was brown again within a week. I took off the resivoir for something last week, flushed the thing out, replaced it with bright neon green coolant (100% too, figured a little more concentration would help since its probably low on the rust protectants). It was again brown within a week.

Putting in 100% coolant is gonna boil your engine and kill your headgasket (no wonder it turned brown ), coolant has a terrible heat transfering capability and it needs the 50/50 mix of water to work.
Supposedly a 30% coolant and 70% water mix will provide just fine anticorrosion protection, I've even been told that even a drop of coolant is gonna postpone rusting. Quite frankly, I think this is close to reality, as I've ran with almost plain water few times and the coolant still comes out nice and clean.
Only brown coolant I ever noticed was in my parents benz and that was dealership coolant. definately wasnt rust as it was an all alloy block.

[hooRAH]

I'm sorry, I didn't word that properly.

What I meant was that when I changed it 2 years ago, I used a 50/50 mix, mabye slightly less. A couple of weeks ago, I pulled just the resivoir. When I refilled just the resivoir, I used 100% coolant, which would slightly increase the concentration of the whole system. By that time, I figured it could use a bit more protectants.

[kamesama980]

too much coolant is just as bad as too little. coolants heat transferring ability is like a bell curve. 70/30 either way is about as far as you want to run. i'll usually fill up with 50/50 mix and then top off and burp with plain water, less mess when you spill.

[hooRAH]

Thank you captain obvious. My point was that the coolant has a tendency to turn brown in this car more than I've seen in other cars (for whatever reason), and that brown coolant is often mis-diagnosed as a failed headgasket. Considering I've put 20k miles on the car since then, I can say with a good degree of certainty that the headgasket is not blown, despite expert opinions that say so.

While completely off topic, I'm well aware of the heat transferring ability of pure ethylene glycol, considering I am a mechanical engineer.

[Flashmn]

Plain water is better conducting heat than coolant mix. Race cars often use plain water and just an anticorrosion agent, because 1)helps cooling 2)glycol spilled on track causes lot more danger than water.