Three problems…...

[nullset]

Okay, you probably saw my earlier post about my idle being funky. There is one other problem I was aware of, at the time.

It has been slowly losing coolant. I thought it was a leak in the valley, so I pulled that today and there doesn't seem to be any coolant there.

The car has been getting hotter than normal. On my drive home, if I get stuck in traffic, the needle inches up to 220, and sometimes higher. I usually cut the engine if I'm stuck in non moving traffic to keep it from over heating.

Once I got into the valley, I noticed that the intake and cylinder walls are oily.

Does this indicate a problem with the engine? Maybe a bad head gasket?

--buddy

[Ron]

"Cylinder walls"???

Got a pic?

[Kevin]

Does this indicate a problem with the engine? Maybe a bad head gasket?

Very possible, does your oil look milky or green? I was slowly losing coolant into my oil for a while, thought it was a head gasket, ended up being bad cylinder seals from a previous rebuild.

[vwdmc16]

I have a similar issue with coolant disappearing, I believed it to be leaking coolant tubes so I took them all out and did a real through job cleaning and replacing every clamp. ive done my valley and its super dry. I saw my pressure cap was vent to overflow. I installed a overflow container but still I loose more than what ends up in the can. I may have a tiny head gasket leak too.

[nullset]

Well, the coolant leak turns out to be due to a leak in both the water pump (between the two halves), one of the pipe studs that connect to the block (I'm not sure what these are called. They're small, on the block to the left and right of the intake), and one slightly loose clamp.

I'm glad that I found that.

Now I'm going to take the back off of the water pump and put some RTV on it before putting it back together. It's a new pump. I didn't put RTV on it when I put it together last time, though.

Hopefully this will help the overheating issue. The oil issue isn't terrible, it's just gunky. I'll clean it out and keep an eye on it for next time I'm in there.

At this point, I'm thinking that it's not a problem with the engine itself, just the cooling system.

Thanks for the advice everyone.

--buddy

[jawn101]

I have a similar issue with coolant disappearing, I believed it to be leaking coolant tubes so I took them all out and did a real through job cleaning and replacing every clamp. ive done my valley and its super dry. I saw my pressure cap was vent to overflow. I installed a overflow container but still I loose more than what ends up in the can. I may have a tiny head gasket leak too.

Uh oh. Another project...