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My first normal Solstice problem! Hooray! Questions lurk inside.

2K views 15 replies 9 participants last post by  ¿spoom 
#1 ·
Well, I figured out where the slightly-odd-but-not-concerning-enough-to-warrant-worry noises were coming from under my Sol's hood. My water pump was singing its swan song. (I was totally wrong about the "Not concerning enough to warrant worry" part.) Things went south on my post-work drive home today - temps started to rise, and I had to cool the car off about 5 times on my normally 45 minute commute home. The worst I saw was 240 on the DIC, I'm hoping I didn't do any permanent damage. The engine starts up fine when it's cool.

Thanks to some extensive use of the search function here on the forums, I found hammy221's excellent guide on swapping the water pump, which might just save me the embarrassment of going to the dealer and trying to get it fixed with no money. That said, his guide is for a 2.4 engine. I've got a 2.0, and there's this pesky turbocharger in the way of me getting the job done. I'm hoping to find a similarly detailed guide on disassembling the turbocharger assembly, as I'm sure there's some extra bolts I'll have to spin, and oil I'll have to get all over myself and my engine bay. If anyone could point me in the right direction for such information, I'd greatly appreciate it. I'm hoping to tackle this over the long holiday weekend, along with an oil change on the poor car.

Also, quite the long shot here, but if anyone happens to be in the Philadelphia area who is somewhat familiar with this repair, and is willing to oversee my actions over the holiday weekend for a price less than what the criminals at my dealership want (along with the finest Yuengling and pizza money can buy), I'd be quite grateful. I'm fairly new to fixing things that don't involve me pounding on a keyboard or kicking things (We call that percussive maintenance in my field) so I can use all the extra help I can get. I did manage to get a diff in with only a chipped tooth and a few ruined outfits to show for my troubles (My cargo pants still smell faintly of diff fluid even after a month and several washings), but anything bolted to the engine tends to make me quite paranoid about my skill level.
 
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#2 ·
I can't help with the GXP water pump, but I really enjoyed reading this.


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#3 ·
We changed a 2.0 water pump a couple of weeks ago. DDM has nice instructions on their site. We did not pull the turbo. You can work around it ok. Some of the bolts are reached from under the car. It took us 8 hours with a couple of do overs. Having done one we could probably do the next lne in four or five hours.

The rear bolts on the thermostat housing are the most challenging to access.
 
#5 ·
I came across DDM's guide this morning while searching around, that definitely put my mind at ease. DDM hasn't led me wrong yet, but I'm still happy to have confirmation that these instructions are solid. I've got a whole weekend to burn working with the car - I'll take my cot to my garage just in case.

Your braver then I am....and I have service experience...good luck!!
Never attribute to bravery what may be stupidity. My diff quite literally clobbered me with my own torque wrench the last time I tried working on this car. I anticipate moments with this little project too.
 
#4 ·
Your braver then I am....and I have service experience...good luck!!
 
#6 ·
You may want to post this on the Kappaperformance forum because it has a lot of east coasters, also the Skyroadster forum. Good luck on this job, I think all of us will be doing this task in the future. I'm hoping someone will make a video by the time it happens to me.
 
#7 ·
I did just pick up an action cam.....I'd planned to use it for recording autocross stuff, but I suppose this is a good enough project to break it in on. If I figure out how to use the camera and actually manage to pull this repair off, I'll report back with footage.
 
#10 ·
Well, that didn't go according to plan.

Swapping the water pump went fine. I managed to get that done over the holiday weekend. Followed DDM's bleed procedure, and temps look a lot better when the car is sitting still. However, when I start to drive, things are OK until I reach about 180, then temps begin to spike very quickly. I've also got bubbles forming in the overflow tank, and it fills up to the max level very quickly when the car is driven and temps rise beyond 215/220F. I repeated the bleed process multiple times with zero luck, everything goes as planned, but I still can't get temps to stabilize. I've also got no heat, even after the car's reported temp rises to operating temp. Prior to swapping the water pump, I definitely had heat - I tried the old trick of running the heater to drop temps when the issue first occurred during my drive home from work. I've checked the heater core to see if it's got a massive air bubble, but I'm definitely getting some coolant flowing through both hoses traveling to the heater core, and coolant drains out when I attempt to disconnect and reconnect the heater core hoses.

My next blind attempt will be swapping the thermostat - I pulled the housing, but didn't pull it all the way out to get eyes on the thermostat itself. I'm thinking that if it's not opening at the right temp, that could be leading to my overheating issues. The only other thing I've been able to dig up based on my research of this kind of problem is head gasket failure. Since that's a bit beyond my skill to diagnose, I'm trying to rule out any other possibilities before I drop even more money at the local GM repair center.

If anyone's got any other suggestions on other possible culprits I should look at, beyond just swapping the thermostat, I'd appreciate any input.
 
#11 ·
No heat is a classic symptom of an air bubble.

Use the alternate method for bleeding that DDM figured out. Remove the mounting bolt for the overflow bottle, remove the hose on the top left side of the engine and raise the overflow bottle into the sky until you get a good stream of pure coolant coming out of the head port. That will force the air out of the system. Its still in there, lurking.
 
#12 ·
Did that. Even tried lifting the drivers side of the car for even more height. No dice. Might give it one more shot before I pick up a thermostat, but I'm game for swapping the thermostat anyway. I ran a good half-gallon out through the head port in my 10-15 attempts. (That was a cleanup nightmare.)
 
#15 · (Edited)
Some thoughts : I had a overheating issue last year that puzzled me because I'm really over the top as far as maintenance on my car goes bottom line was the temp sensor was not working correctly don't waste your money on a GM one they are only guaranteed for 2 years I got one at Auto Zone with a lifetime warranty and it was a lot cheaper .I did a complete cooling system overhaul this year and by that I mean a full system flush with distilled water ,replaced the thermostat with one from Ligenfelter Performance almost 50 bucks cheaper then my dealer and drilled a 1/16 hole in the base ,replaced my upper radiator hose with a silicone hose from DDM (I've since added the new hose kit that replaces the ones off the reservoir ) filled with fresh Dex Cool and a bottle of Royal Purple Purple Ice ,replaced all my hose clamps I check them at the beginning of the driving season just to be on the safe side. I used an Airlift tool (Thanks Rob !) and ran it 3 times up to operating temperatures and checked for air in the system .I also made sure my fan was working mine kicks on at 214 or you can turn on the air on the fan will kick on my car now never goes over 210 and we have had a very hot summer plus I have a turbo kit I'm usually running around 190 .My point with all of this is a lot of times a problem can be masked by other conditions that affect it so for me the best route to go was replacing all the components in the cooling system except the water pump .
 
#16 · (Edited)
Anybody remember the old yellow Prestone caps on a heater hose where the hose had been cut and a male/male fitting with the said yellow cap had been installed? Maybe something like that would be useful. My '64 Avanti has (had) a brass expansion tank w/radiator cap on top of the water pump. Since they are prone to split and leak at the seam and are quite rare/expensive to replace, I took mine off and stored it. It's replacement is new hose, metal tubing with a radiator cap fitting, a conventional thermostat housing/hose termination and a poly hose to an aftermarket coolant expansion tank. I'm sure something similar could be fabbed with a capped opening other than a radiator cap, i.e. threaded or expansion plug.
 
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