Feast your eyes on one of the finest engines ever made in America, back when America was proudly still making fine engines. The GM 3800 is featured in countless Youtube videos for being bulletproof, and they’re not lying. This thing is the recipe for a perfect engine: drop-dead simple design, easy to work on almost anything, and covered in affordable parts for replacement. Much like the Japanese cars of the time America was still trying to compete with, this thing could take abuse, and just keep on trucking.
It had but one, single and significant flaw that would one day cause problems: plastic lower intake gaskets. Over the years, they fail, and coolant starts mixing with your oil. You’ll think the head gasket is going bad. Talk to a few seasoned mechanics though (like I did) and you’ll discover the truth.
The coolant ports will start to clog up, and this whole vicinity of the engine will get dirty in a hurry. The GM 3800 is a forgiving beast though, and will let you drive like this for many thousands of miles. Unfortunately, whilst doing so, your coolant ports will start to clog up with the gunk created by that mixing of coil and coolant. (pictured above) All of the internals you see around it will also get dirtied up with burning oil. If you go on long enough, it will begin to blow your head gasket.
It’s far from the hardest job, and when you’re done, you’ve protected an engine that will serve you potentially another few hundred thousand miles, with love.
So, if your coolant smells like butt and has gunk in it, either do the above or take it to a professional. It’s worth the cost to fix this one.
My Poor-People Car Passion 
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