Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Overflow tank cap

My 95 GL has the same hissing cap. It allows preasure to blow off and not stress the system so much. Mine never boils over and its the origional.

yeah thougth about that, the hissing being the release of pressure and its designed to do that. well now i have white smoke coming from my exhaust when i start it up and it has an anti-freeze smell to it, i've lost some antifreeze from the tank. i've looked at 3 of the 6 spark plugs and they are clean of anti-freeze and oil so thats a good sign and the dip stick doesnt have anti-freeze on it either so im encouraged that it doesnt seem like a blown head gasket right now. any ideas? im thinking about putting my old reservior tank back on with the pressure relief tube on the back of it and use the new cap and see if that helps maybe.

Doesn't matter what tank you're going to put on. Coolant doesn't magically get into the engine.

Todras, so are thinking blown head gasket? Or could it be something else?

If it had a blown head gasket it would most likely misfire on top over heating.

Here is a cheap quick way to test the headgasket.

Fill antifreeze to the brim on recovery tank (leave cap off). Remove all spark plug wires. Remove all but one spark plug and have someone crank the engine. If the antifreeze bubbles over, there is leak from that portion of the engine (or cylinder). If not, go to the next cylinder, and then the next.... Note, it could be more than one area or more than one cylinder. Good luck

When the old tank was on, I would drive to work (25 min drive), then when i would get off the exit and make it about a mile down the road, my temp would rise and i would give it one good punch on the trottle while in neutral and it would go back down to normal, but since i've changed tanks, no problem like that, one had maybe 2 instances where i felt the car may have mis-fired, but i wasnt looking for it and honestly wasnt paying attention to the car itself to "catch" the feel of it when i thought it might have mis-fired. spark plugs were just replaced last week as well just as an FYI (well after the couple times i thought it might have mis-fired). this much smoke shouldnt come from the car when its first started and then go away after a couple min.

Thanks Tony, but wouldnt the cylinders that dont have plugs in them fill up with fuel?? wouldnt that be hard to start later???

Sounds like a Head Gasket. Coolant level going down.
Anti-freeze out the tail pipe?
Temps being eratic?
I would stop driving it as to avoid warping the head(s).