Tell me how stupid I am (3100 V6 content)

So today I noticed that the coolant was low on the wife's cutlass, and decided I needed to figure out where it was going (no puddles) and pray that it wasn't the intake gasket leaking. Well you can guess what happened next, it's leaking from under the thermostat housing, but it isn't the thermostat housing leaking as far as I can tell.

I've done the 3100 intake gasket once before...

I vowed never again....

Told her we'd get a new car before I did it again....

BUT, we can't afford to go car shopping. This led me to option B. 3800SC swap. I can't find much info past "it doesn't bolt in so it's hard" and a youtube video of a tailpipe.

Logic says just fix the intake, you have bigger fish to fry (I only have three projects running at the moment). My inner Stig says I need "more powah" and should tear apart the only running reliable car we have and mod it.

Tell me I'm stupid before it's too late.

Are you SURE it's the intake? Because isn't there a quick disconnect or O-ring fitting back there too?

That area well and truly sucks to see in-chassis.

A Cutlass is not a worthy recipient of the time and effort it takes to swap the motor. Fix the gasket, or if Knurled is right, whatever else might be leaking.

A friend once had a white one of those, and he kept saying that he wanted a windshield banner that read "CAR" to celebrate its vanilla blandness.

I think there's that quick disconnect bullE36 M3 for the heater hose coming off the back of the thermo housing area. Might want to see if it's that. It will still be a PITA ( it's a 3100!), just a smaller one.

My cousin had an 89k mile 3100 cutlass that needed intake gaskets. We drove it to the junkyard, sold it to some guys in the parking lot for ~$480, and bought a 1994 Town and Country van for $400. Granted, the van needed a lot of work, MORE work than the cutlass needed, but i told my cousin "If i'm going to be your mechanic and work at highly discounted rates you have to own something i dont HATE(!!!!!!!) working on."

So far, so good!

Yeah the plan is/was to buy a PT turbo when she gets out of school and let this car go out in a blaze of nitrous fueled glory at a test and tune. I told her the same thing about owning something I didn't hate to work on.

I'll admit I don't remember much about the one I did before beyond how bad it sucked. I charged the guy 400 in labor to do it and felt like I got screwed.

The dealership guys do them in 40 minutes, how bad can it be?

They are cake on a cutless. Just do it.

look at the heater fitting first. if not do the intake gaskets. it took me an hour on my sister's 3100 lumina including changing the oil. air tools and 7, 10, 13mm sockets of the deep variety are your friend. no undoing the fuel lines either, the rails just flop over to the driver's side.

i did one the other day, not that bad. The water pump/timing chains on the 2.7 sebring i wont do.

The thing about the 3100 top end is not that things are super hard. At least for me, the problem is that you are asking yourself "WHY DID THEY DO IT THIS WAY" every second of the job and it just makes you angry.

I must've been doing it wrong as it took me probably 6 hrs. to do it. Either way I have to tear into the car way more than I ever wanted to.

In reply to Vigo:

At least they aren't like Chrysler where you ask yourself why every bolt is twice as long as it needs to be.

Werent the 3800s an engine option in the Cutlass? I think at least the smaller 3300 "Buick" V6.

Buy the felpro kit and you wont have to do it again.

I dont think the 3300 and 3100 coexisted at the same time. If im thinking right, the Cutlass in question is a mid-late 90s Malibu with an Olds badge.

At least they aren't like Chrysler where you ask yourself why every bolt is twice as long as it needs to be.

Well when you have to heli-coil the tensioner bolt hole in the rear head of your 3100 because it only has like 3 threads of thread engagement from the factory bolt, you might be wishing for a longer bolt!

Did some looking, and no site has them listed with the 3.0, 3.3, or 3.8 big 6. Yet, in my repair books, they have the 3.3 and 3.8 as an optional engine.

i did head both head gaskets on a 3100 in a Monte Carlo in 6 hours- which was spread out over about 3 days because i was also working 12 hours and driving an hour and a half each way to and from work at the time... an intake would be a couple of hours tops- just get to it and git er dun...

but make sure it isn't something stupid like a heater hose fitting first...

In reply to AquaHusky:

The repair book is written for the platform, not just that make/model. The Buick and Pontiac versions probably used the 90* Buick v6.

Yep Malibu with an Olds badge. Apparently it's a car so mundane even people here won't modify them.

moparman76_69 wrote: Yep Malibu with an Olds badge. Apparently it's a car so mundane even people here won't modify them.

Moparman is soooooooo stupid

how stoopid is he?

Moparman is sooooo stupid that he'd rather swap engines than change an intake gasket!

rim-shot

In reply to Spoolpigeon:

True story. Maybe over time I've just made it out to be more traumatic than it really is, but I'm not looking forward to it. Hopefully everyone is right and it's just a fitting, not that it still wouldn't be a pain in the ass.

That fitting is still a PITA. It's a 3100. Only thing they got right was the water pump.

Apparently it's a car so mundane even people here won't modify them.

My cousin had one. He asked me to do intake gaskets and i made him throw the car away. Get your wife a $400 dodge. Ever done lower intake gaskets on a 3.3/3.8 Dodge? Mostly likely not, but if you did do it you might not remember because you slept through it or were also watching tv and it didn't give you PTSD.

Vigo wrote: The thing about the 3100 top end is not that things are super hard. At least for me, the problem is that you are asking yourself "WHY DID THEY DO IT THIS WAY" every second of the job and it just makes you angry.

This is why I love my Subaru; I never have those moments. It's slow, leaks oil, has 170,000 miles and a whingey synchro on 2nd gear but it's a breeze to work on.

A buddy of mine loves these GM A bodies. He swears by the 88-91 model years. Hates the 3100 with a passion, loves the 3300. 3300 was discontinued in 92 or 93, IIRC, and the 93s have a lot of year-specific parts.

He mostly buys 3300 powered A bodies for 1000 bucks and drives them into the ground. Cheap, reliable, plentiful A-B cars. I think right now he has one each Chevy, Olds, and Buick. He modified the Ciera (a rust-free, low mile estate car) with shorter final gears and the OD trans w/ lockup converter. Sub 8 second 0-60, 14's in the quarter. And 25 mpg. Pretty respectable #s.