Forgot to mention one thing...when I got home from the drive, pulled in the garage and got out of the car, I could definitely smell coolant...seemed like it was coming from around the drivers rear wheel well...

 

Don't bother sending the oil. If 2 galloms went into it, you would see it.

 

Imo000...my concern is did 2 gallons go into it over the course of months...just seeping in and burning off. Not enough to trigger alarms (until it finally got low enough), but enough to show that I do have a cylinder crack or a head gasket leak. I have to be honest, I don't check my coolant level very often (until now)...

 

Never mind a month, if 2 gallons went into the oil in a year, the oil would still look like milk shake. If in a month, the oil level would also be sky high and milk shake looking. If you let the engine sit long enough for the oil and coolant to seperate, when you pull the drain plyg the firat thing you would see is clean coolant and then some mix of oil/coolant and last would be clean engine oil. If there is no sign of external leak and your oil looks normal, the only other way the coolant can dissapear is through the combustion chamber.

 

Bad.Tag - I really like your avatar pic... can you post it up in full size?

 

Probably the coolant tank has a very small crack in it. Are you sure when you pressurize the tank the coolant is coming out of the overflow tube and not a crack in the tank.
If it were a head gasket you would probably see bubbles in the coolant tank when the engine is running because it can pressurize it.

 

The head gaskets on these and many engines now days a multi layer steel units that pretty much never fail. If they "blow" it more likely a warped head or block than a blown gasket. You would have to severy overheat and engine for this to happen and in that case, you will have other bigger problems than a heqd gasket.

 

wxseed...Yes I'm sure that the UView is pulling coolant out when hooked up...no leaks seem to be originating from the tank

Imo000...I hear what you're saying and from everything I've read head gaskets "blowing" are extremely rare on these cars...but I still for the life of me can't figure out where else I could be getting coolant into the combustion..

 

Thanks! We have a snow thread going here with larger shots - https://rennlist.com/forums/showthre...4&referrerid=0

 

Start pulling the spark plugs. The one that looks brand new is where the coolant is going. Lets hope they all look normal.

 

Déjà Vu! See below I thought someone had swiped my pic! I read your thread here with interest as I had a similar experience recently. New to me 99 C2 Tip with 85K miles went into a local indy for 90K service and I had the IMS, RMS, water pump and AOS replacement even though there was no obvious issues with the motor. Driving it home I got the flashing coolant light and had to add about a pint of water when I got home. Next drive I ran it pretty good on some of the local twisties and I noticed the temp spike for a split second and then the coolant warning light started flashing. This time it took about a qt. Read up on this and saw I had the original coolant cap ending in 1. Replaced that and haven't had any issues since.

However I did freak out after I replaced the cap because that was the first time I noticed the color of my coolant. My first thought was oil in it but everyone including my indy seemed to think it was normal for a mixture of old and new. I haven't noticed any smoke out of the exhaust, smell of coolant and oil appears clean at the filler and dipstick so I am writing this off to a faulty cap which may have been exposed by the way I've been driving the car - hard but at slower speeds overall.

I'm going to keep an eye on everything though and watch for any telltale signs of a system leak, blown head etc in the oil/coolant. As well as checking my coolant tank per Macsters post.

Rich

 

Imo000...I'm going to do that, but my concern is that they are all going to look new...the car has only been driven 20 miles since I replaced the plugs and coils...also, I ran it in the garage yesterday with the reservoir cap off...I saw no bubbles but again who knows because I did smell coolant and there was a lot of water blowing out the exhaust...do you think I'm better off just having it towed to the shop for compression and cylinder leak tests?

 

RDykmans..I followed your post as well...the one thing I was concerned about with my coolant was not so much the color but the clarity...your's seems to be perfectly clear whereas mine is anything but transparent...I just don't know if maybe that's due to age or something else...

 

Here is a video of my exhaust from startup...initially you will see quite a bit of "smoke" then it tapers off...picks back up again around the 1:11 mark in the video and continues through the end...at the end of the video you will see the amount of water that is being spit from my exhaust pipes...

I'm 99% sure that when it's smoking/steaming that it's coolant that's burning but again, I'm not a mechanic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wg2lb...ature=youtu.be

 

Does the steam tastes sweet? Coolant has a very sweet taste