mustangman66

Hi everyone. New here, though I've read the forums for a while now. Never had a reason to ask a question until now, so I hope someone has the answers, cause I'm going bald from pulling hair out. My heater has gone mad on me. One day it was good, the next crap. Changed out the radiator, water pump, thermostat, temperature sensor, hoses, flushed the heater core, and still nothing. Idling it blows cold air, when driving though it'll get luke warm. I even duct taped the cold air intake under the cowl to keep air out. Now, to combine the problem, I ran a bottle of Lucas through the fuel, changed the fuel filter, and now the damn car blows white smoke out while it's idling. It doesn't run rough or anything, and I changed the oil in it last week and it looks good, not milky. A mechanic told me it was a head gasket, then he changed his mind and said it ran too smooth. Is that what it is, and would it also explain my heater problems? Any help is appreciated.

bacon57

The white smoke sounds like a head gasket to me. But running the Luca's throught the fuel should not blow a head gasket. And it would run really rough and miss if it was leaking coolant into the cylinders. As far as the heater goes, I knew a guy with a Corsica that had that same problem, turned out the cover over the heater core was not sealing.

mustangman66

I wouldn't think it would blow a head gasket either. The smoke has a rich gas smell to it, so maybe it's just the cleaner doing it's job and I'm just panicking over nothing? IDK. Since winter is almost over here I'll probably wait on looking at the heater box since the dash has to come out to do it

4 banger

pull off the rad. cap when its cold. if theres oil at the top then your block is cracked i had one in my race car do that. white smoke and oil in the coolant and turned out to be the block was cracked

mustangman66

Haven't noticed any oil, although the coolant is disappearing somewhere, my overflow tank is always empty, but the car doesn't run hot.

bacon57

How long have you run it since you ran the cleaner through it? I ran seafoam through mine and it only smoked for a couple of minutes.

mustangman66

3 days ago.

sleeper_inc

Ok. Lets get your problems in the light here...

No/little heat
These cars are known to run cold for their size. Add a 190*-195* thermistat, get all the air out of your system also. If your losing collant, when you turn the heat on is there a cloud of smoke? or an anti freeze type of smell? If so your heater core is bad. If not then do a compression test, if all cylinders but one or two are close to each other (ex) 1-150 2-152, 3-95, 4-98. You blew the head gasket between cylinders 3 & 4.

I had to replace my heater core and get the air out of the system, now my car gets warm in 5 minutes of idling in park

White smoke
Could be coolant burning or it could be the residue from the cleaner or the cold air

Mthd11

sleeper how did you do your heater core, mines awol and i reallly dont want to do it during the winter, im thinking of just sticking it out till summer then just bypassing it.

I didnt know lucas made a fuel treatment? Sounds like you need a new heater core to me (mustangman66)

sleeper_inc

I took my whole dash out[&:][&:][&:]