Thread: GXE problems

Well of course anything a woman drives gets tore up. Anyways, my wife was on her way home from work the other night, about a 30 min drive and she gives me a call saying the power steering went out. I tried to get her to check the belt but being the pita that she is she gave up on it. Knowing that it was going to overheat probably I told her to keep an eye on the guage. She swears up and down that the thing never got hot.

Got a chance to look at it today, Both belts were off of the motor. The idler pulley was extremely loose, so I'm assuming the alternator belt was thrown and tied up into the power steering belt. With that said I was hoping that it just died because the battery wasn't charging before it overheated. I put the belts back on it and fired it up. It ran just fine until I turned the key off and tried to start it again. The battery died very quickly and wouldn't start. I tried to jump it and it still wouldn't start. I pulled the plugs, it's definitely getting fuel haven't tested spark yet. I decided to check compression and came up with left to right facing the motor, 130-155-135-145. The fsm says minimum of 171. The motor has 193,000 on it. What worries me is that the car has been sitting for about 3 wks and if the HG is blown then that coolant has probably been sitting in the combustion chamber for that long. Just want to know what you all think I should do with this thing. Anything else I should look at?

why dont you just change the battery and get a new one. the battery is probably so dead that you cant jump it. This happen to me yesterday. Battery was so dead that it took a jump back and another car with jumper cables just to start the car and even thoe i left it running for a long period of time as soon as i turned it off it wouldnt start for nuthing. Battery was good as gone. Get a good battery and then see how your car runs and feels

Battery is only 6 months old...

ok, I'm thinking the head is cracked or the headgasket is gone. I drove the car to town earlier today, about a mile. Car ran great, I turned the car off and came back out and it cranked and cranked but wouldn't start. I walked home, went back about 5 hours later and it fired right up again. I'm thinking that when the car is cold the head is sealed and as it warms up it expands and leaks compression. But I also know that usually it's only on one or two cylinders, so what's keeping this thing from starting?

if your head was cracked you would be loosing coolant or oil or something. No smoke comes out when it does start?? Also just because a battery is NEW does not mean its good. batterys do have a shelf life also. Not saying its your battery because it obviusly started on its own..... hmmm.. intresting

too cold to tell if it's really smoking badly. White smoke is tough to see in the wintertime. I'm kinda stuck though from here, I don't want to tear it down if I don't have to. Thing that keeps bugging me is how low the compression was.