3800 cooling system from HELL

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B-train

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What....in....the.....actual...**** was GM thinking? Not only did they put crummy plastic coolant tees in, now you get the joy of pulling the transmission to chase coolant leaks. Good grief!

Well, that's definitely where my daughter's was leaking from I'm sure. Not anymore thank you K-Stop! Probably rhe same for OP.

Good video find there @OR VietVet
 
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Matthew Jeschke

Matthew Jeschke

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I think on the 3800 (possibly 3100 as well) would be prudent to utilize the Bars tablets as part of regular maintenance given the difficulty of installing new gaskets.

I found metal bypass elbows after wrecking a set of OEM ones I swapped in after my originals broke. Guy at parts counter told me there's a lawsuit with GM over the coolant. Apparently the factory spec coolant was corrosive to the rubber o-rings on the bypass elbows as well. He told me NOT to use Dex-cool as a result.
 

OR VietVet

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I think on the 3800 (possibly 3100 as well) would be prudent to utilize the Bars tablets as part of regular maintenance given the difficulty of installing new gaskets.

I found metal bypass elbows after wrecking a set of OEM ones I swapped in after my originals broke. Guy at parts counter told me there's a lawsuit with GM over the coolant. Apparently the factory spec coolant was corrosive to the rubber o-rings on the bypass elbows as well. He told me NOT to use Dex-cool as a result.
Yea, those tablets were originally used, right out of the factory, on the Cadillac Northstar engines. Then they started being used on lots of GM engines, anytime aluminum was involved.
 
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B-train

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I remember in the 80s, 90s, and esrly 2000s my dad would put in the GM coolant tabs in certain vehicles as prescribed maintenance every couple of years, or something like that.

They are like giant ant-acid pills. Crunch them up, pour the dust into a cold radiator, and then test drive. It seemed to work just fine. I'm not sure what the long term affects were, but those were the days of 3 years on green coolant changes, so my guess is whatever didn't harden up just got flushed out.
 

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