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Select one if you have had a problem with the headgasket the Northstar V8:

Northstar Headgasket/Cracked Block/Bolt Failure? Please let us know

294K views 546 replies 243 participants last post by  ihc70 
#1 ·
Here is the Definitive Northstar Headgasket Thread. Please choose your year of Cadillac and state if you have had a headgasket problem with your Seville or Eldorado and what mileage it occured at. If you have never had a problem please do not participate in the poll!
 
#253 ·
2001 SLS, now has 50221. We both are mid 70’s seniors, and don’t drive it hard. Most trips are rather local, 40-150 miles round trip. Very seldom less than a 20 mile round trip. Mostly in the 50-70 mph range. We bought this new, and it is her car. It does sit in the garage Jan, Feb and Mar every year. Our other car is a ’04 Honda Odyssey. We are both retired, and I do most of the driving, so the Caddy doesn’t get used as much. The Odyssey has a lift for her Hoveround, but we try to drive the Caddy whenever she is not going to need the Hoveround. We try to drive it 3 days a week. It has never been hot, we have never had any warning lights.

At about 41K, it had a little miss sometimes when starting. I thought it was an injector problem, so I put several doses of injector cleaner in the tank when I filled it. Seemed to cure the problem, but it came back at about 45K. Then one day when I started it, there was quite a bit of steam in the exhaust, (this summer), and when I got back there, I could smell the coolant, so with sinking heart, I knew what was happening. After consulting with several friends, I bought some Barsleak. I pulled the hose off at the motor end, and poured it in. After I put the hose back on, I filled the overflow with tap water. I have put about 1000 miles on it in the last 4 weeks, and there has been no miss, and no steam.

So, the question is, where do we go from here? She won’t sell her beloved Caddy, besides, I like it too.

Anyone have any experience or guess how long this might last? Should I have the coolant replaced? If so, should I keep Barsleak in there? Any thoughts, experiences or advice is welcome. I did look at the repair services listed on the forum, and that is the ultimate solution, but it is not an option at this time. Yes, I did call our dealer, and he quoted $6000 or so. I guess that’s his way of saying “unrepairable”.
 
#254 · (Edited)
Barsleak Headgasket repair in a bottle

:mad2: For those of you who wish to continue the debate, just skip this reply. For those who want to learn something constructive, read on.

:want: I've used the Barsleak brand head gasket repair in quite a few cars and it works really, really well.

:) Most recently in my father-in-law's 99 Eldo with 121k miles.

:thumbsup: First and foremost, use it on a car that is just beginning to have a leakage or overheating problem. Why? Because if you keep driving and overheating the car, it will certainly pull the studs and you'll be looking at the full repair. It is made to fix small headgasket leaks, not perform miracles on blocks with no threads for the bolts to grab onto.

If you catch the problem before the headstuds pull and follow the directions TO THE LETTER, this stuff is amazing.

I was a little worried about the pressure at the gasket so I doubled the dose (2 bottles) on the Northstar.

:tisk:For those of you who claim that it clogs this or ruins that, it's clear that you've either never used it or didn't follow the directions (see posting right above this one).

It's to be diluted in water and added to the engine that way ONLY AFTER a complete flush. You run at about 1500rpm's for 20 minutes and then let idle for another hour. Then you let the car cool for an hour and then (yes, while the water is still hot) you drain everything.

Then let it sit for 24 hours and flush completely AGAIN.

We added the required 3 GM sealant tabs into the lower hose and filled with Dexcool.

:want: Dad's El-Dog is still kickin after thousands of miles and it cost us less than $50! If I have to do it again next year, that won't bother me a bit!

:thehand:I'm not going to spend a minute responding to people who don't believe me. I don't care if you believe me or not. I don't own stock in Barsleak and I don't care if you'd rather waste $5k instead of trying a $50 fix. :crybaby:

I wish you all the best.:yup:
 
#255 ·
:DI will have to agree with timd, only I didn't use bars leak. I used K&W nanotechnology permanent head gasket and block repair. And this gets even better if it doesn't work double your money back guarantee:). seems you have nothing to lose by trying this. Like timd said all the directions accurately. I used this on my 99 STS. it's now 6 months and over 10,000 miles later and still perfectly seal. And I have the blue fluid to test the radiator for combustion gases once a month and so far no sign of a leak.
enough said.:canttalk:
http://www.cadillacforums.com/forums/member.php?u=61726
 
#262 ·
From the first glance looking to the pole results I see a very logical result:
Most of the cars with HG problems are ‘97-‘99 with a drop on the older and newer cars.
The drop on the older cars is because there are not so many left and if the problem happens is less likely to be repaired. While with the newer cars is either because they have not enough mileage accumulated or the problem was indeed fixed.
I bet next year ’97 will be somewhere below 10% and 2000 will likely go up sharply.
This pole should be seen as a count, you don’t have an issue you don’t participate.

That being said ’97 STS little over 120K miles no issue yet (knock on wood).
 
#263 · (Edited)
2002 Seville STS with a head gasket failure....

all it took was a cracked radiator for a month....running it on water during that time might not have helped...

After replacing the radiator, it really blew out a few weeks after during a 1500+ mile trip...

a tech will be digging in to replace using the Norms Kit tomorrow... so i'll know exactly what happened... i'm anxious to see my block apart!!! ... read all about it in the post below...

http://www.cadillacforums.com/forum...178796-new-2002-head-gasket-failure-best.html

Sucks for me! but hopefully an unemployed craigslist tech can do it for me for cheap...

BTW... I don't think the poll is bias, it makes sense... it's about headgasket/headbolt failures in northstars and for what year... it's not a debate on if there's a problem... lol... that's no debate...
 
#265 ·
Hello all I am new here trying to keep my 2000 cadillac DTS running, I had the engine rebuilt in January 2008. Now when I drive on the highway it tries to run a little hotter than normal, so I took it back to the people that rebuilt the engine and they say they can't find anything wrong. so I paid the 435.00 for them to tell me that. everyone one I talked to says head gasket, so I took it to cadillac, from the symptoms they said HG, they did a block test on the car and said it turned out good, they also could not find any leaks 170.00 dollars later. I still smell radiator fluid and it still tries to run hot. Could it be a external leak? everyone is baffled, even the maker of the car is there another test we could have done. Please if anyone can help Nobody knows whats wrong. ;o ( HELP!!!!!!
 
#267 ·
Mine just went on a 99 SLS. For about 6 months I heard a little gurgling but thought it was just air in the system. Then one day it blew out all the coolant. I knew right then what it was and took it to Northstar performance to have Jake put in the studs. Just came back with it today for will let you know. By the way the gaskets went at 120,000 and I did everything to avoid it. I changed fluids, installed the ginger root, did WOT's at least once a month and preemptively changed the water pump. For me its just a poor design or materials from GM
 
#271 ·
'98 Deville with 107k-
HG were blown before I purchased car but I was not told that but I found out 3 days later!
Dealer is dropping motor and installing a Stud Kit. They were originally going to just replace the HG's with the motor in the car but then he realized that this car was a '98 and not a '93 (I have no idea where he got the impression it was a '93) and notified me that the repair on this car is to instal the Stud Kit which requires dropping the engine. I am not going to argue because 1st) I wanted the stud kit installed anyways and 2nd) I sure as hell wouldn't want to drill into the rear side of the motor with the firewall right there!

I was told they would be done on Monday 10/26. God I hope so, I haven't even driven this car 100 miles yet!
 
#273 ·
It is fixable... you have to repair all 20 holes in the block with either...

Studs http://Northstarperformance.com

Norm's Inserts

Timeserts

I would recommend either the Studs or Norms Inserts... Timeserts are not as strong of a repair. Expect to pay $2000-$2500... most dealers will charge $3500-$4500 and use Timeserts. If you have any more questions I would recommend starting a new thread in the N* section of the board.
 
#276 ·
My 98 sls made it just over 107k miles. Although I haven't had the coolant tested yet, the temp gauge is bobbing up and down. a sure sign from what I here, but i'll look into it more before I jump to conclusions... Looking at a wrecked 03 sls w/80k to fix up with parts from my 98. I see from the pole that the engines got better after 2000, but that could partially be just cuz they haven't had as much time to fail yet. Anyone else think this may be the case? or did GM in fact greatly improve these engines?
 
#278 · (Edited)
My 1997 Seville SLS had the head gasket/pulled bolts problem around 50k miles. The dealer replaced the gasket and "repaired" the pulled bolts which lasted about 8 months before it went bad again. Then one final try at an independent mechanic shop and lasted about 1 month.
It now sits parked in the garage....a beautiful piece of art to admire. It still starts with a perfect body and everything functions...except the engine blows smoke so it is not drivable on the road. Sad sad sad.....See this link for a video of car as I pulled it outside for pictures:
 
#279 ·
Has anyone heard about the quality of engines at northstarperformance.com?

I am in northern california and am tempted to use their rebuilt engine (reasonable price at $2600) and find a quality experience northstar engine installer in my area to install the engine.

Any thoughts are welcome. Thank you.
 
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