my friend just but a 95? del sol, i am not familiar with these cars at all. He says the coolant is mixing with the oil, he says it will start and run fine and then it will start to mix later and white smoke will pour out of the exhaust and it will shake a bit, what are the possible problems and what can be done about it?

Thanks,
Taylor

 

bunches of white somke sounds like a blown headgasket to me

 

ive never delt with a del sol before, is it a difficult task to replace the head gasket, could it be anything else?

 

Yes, it's pretty difficult to change out a head gasket, unless he's a pretty accomplished shade-tree mechanic. You have to remove the head, sometimes you'll need new head studs if you strip out the old ones removing them, there are tons of things to remove and then forget to reattach upon completion... etc.

And a blown headgasket sounds exactly like the problem. So if he's good at working on cars, wish him luck.

 

when my sol puffed some smoke when i steped on it i took it to a dealer and they said $500 - $2000 to fix it!!! i said to hell with that i'll get a whole new motor for that much.

 

it's difficult on ANY car because it involves removing the cylinder head, and everything connected to it.

swap swap swap swap swap swap swap :thumbup:

 

It's a weekend project for a newb. Not tough at all, just time consuming. The ehad gasket is about $45, get some coolant and oil, and you're good to go. Might as well do the timing belt and water pump at the same time, but that does require a lot more work. If you end up doing it, the first thing you should do is get under the car with a 12mm socket, and about 3ft of extensions, and take the damn bracket off the bottom of the intake manifold. I hate that damn thing! I leave it off of every car I work on. It weighs about 5 lbs, it's annoying, and I hate it! Want me to tell you how I really feel? Other than that, it's unplugging some stuff, draining some fluids, and it's cake. Just make sure you have a torque wrench!

 

poor poor poor poor poor

 

ok, i got the car in my garage, im starting to think that its not the headgasket, it pours out coolant from somewhere around the crank when i start it, probly the waterpump right? but i cant find where the darn thing is? is it an electric pump?

 

That certainly sounds like the waterpump alright... it's internal, it's driven by the crank, and the labor is the same as changing the timing belt and acc. belts, which you might as well do at the same time.