02 Dodge Grand Caravan overheated than shut off. Trying to fix myself-I'm...

[tay]

...broke with 3 kids-Please help? A few months ago I was driving down the hwy and I already had a damaged radiator, foolishly I just kept filling it w/water, I woke up one morning and decided to drive somewhere and forgot to put water in the radiator. After driving about 10 mins, the car overheated,so I slowed down to pull off the exit ramp, and the vehicle calmly and quietly just shut down on me.I coasted the vhcle into a parking lot and parked it.I looked under the hood, and there was smoke coming out of the front valve cover,after towing home, I questioned several ppl,who had me check several things. I did have to replace the battery, there was no water in the oil, but the oil does have a slight gas smell. The engine turns over, but will not start. Does anyone have any suggestions of what it might be? I have 3 children and no money, and this is my only vehicle, I just started school to become a mechanic so I'm familiar with vehicles, but not far enough too diagnose the problem. I'm trying to fix it myself due to financial reasons. Please help! ps-we just purchased the car 6 months before this happened, the radiator leak was the result of a minor accident that I was in. Its a 2002 Dodge Grand Caravan 6 cyl. 3.8 L engine. Thank you very much! -CARCLE R.

 

[Kevin]

read the owners manual and see where the fuel pump reset is if it has one some times the computer will shut down fuel if the car is getting to warm, other wise you could of messed up a lot but it should still fire if it isn't seized, even if it doesn't run well it should still run, on the fuel rail some where there should be a realize valve that will look like a valve stem on a tire, take the cover off make sure its the fuel line and not an a/c line and press it in with a pen making sure to stand out of the way, if it has fuel you have pressure to the motor, if not its not turning on the fuel pump, also listen to the fuel pump and see if its turning on, the gassy oil smell can come from a lot of things i get it in my truck some times it can be caused by real short trips and it not getting a chance to warm up and more likely short trips in cold weather, if you cant get it started after doing these things re-post or what ever, hope it helps

 

[wesley]

Start with doing a compression test if you have the tools to do so. this will tell you if you have damaged the cylinder too badly. if you do not have the tools, grab an old spark plug and break the ceramic out of it so it becomes hollow, then by using a piece of air line and a few clamps connect it to a gauge of some type, even an old tire gauge used for pumping up tires would work if you have nothing else, it might go off the scale but thats a good thing, at least you will know if there is compression there. Crank it for the same time on each cylinder and see if there is a crazy difference between the cylinders. If they are all the same , well your half way to saving the donk. then check your spark, if you haven't already, and check that your getting fuel. If the compression is good your engine should be ok for now at least. If and when you get it going, have a look for bubbles in top of the radiator once she's up and running. If you get bubbles, go and buy some Chemeweld for the servo and follow the instructions, it works pretty good to help seal blow head gaskets etc. My email is [email protected], send me a msg to see how your going and i can help you through some stuff, i'm a diesel fitter by trade, so i got some good cheap tricks up my sleeve to help you out. Good luck and hope to here from you. P.S, does the oil smell burnt? the oil will naturaly smell a but fuely dont worry bout that, if its burnt you'll know the smell. anyway, drop me a line.
Wes

 

[Infinitrium]

It severely overheated then seized up. It may be too damaged to run now.

 

[Luke]

it sounds like, at the very least, you're going to have to change the headgaskets. a gasket set to do this for the van is going to cost a bit (80-100?). because you have to do the intake, and a good bit of other things to get to them.

the reason i think it's the headgasket is that you said the oil smells like gas. what happened was that it overheated, and blew a headgasket from an oil-jacket to the cylinder. you mention that i didnt see the oil-water mixing, which is fine--but headdgaskets can go in about 5 different ways. one, is pushing the air-fuel mix into the oil, or cooling jackets, on the compression stroke. (you could also have overheated it to the point that the oil-rings seized in the pistons, and let the gas leak down that way--in which case a new motor is needed).

but, smoke coming out of the valve cover can still be either of those problems.

you're going to have to tear into it, because there is a lot of internal damage somewhere.

bad headgaskets can keep the car from starting by preventing in from building the quality of compression it needs in order to start.

 

[chris]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it sounds like your engine may have suffered greatly, if not catastrophically, when it overheated. When an engine overheats severely (especially Chrysler motors with their aluminum blocks and heads), the heads, block, and internal parts can possibly melt, warp, or otherwise become damaged. It may be possible that you had pistons or valves warp causing a no compression condition. No compression means no ignition which means no start. Then again, this might not be the case at all and it might be something as simple as a fuel delivery issue. I was just giving you the worst case scenario.