Radiator Reservoir Tank

[Chris Codd]

My radiator has no reservoir tank and I did not see anything about one in the shop manual. I'm sick of constantly refilling my radiator so if anybody has one for sale, I could really use one. 

Chris

[Jason Edge]

Chris, Jumping around here but be sure the outer lip is reasonably flat on the valve covers. I've posted several times about taking two boards, or some other flat edge and pounding the lips back flat.  People overtighten the valve covers pulling the outer lip down meaning the next time you have to tighten even more to get the rest of the gasket to seal, and it just bends down that much more each time until you end up with the outer lip really bent down where the 4 small bolts go. Also use the washers to help spread the load.

As Tony suggested peak under the passenger carpet after car has run at normal temperature for a while with heater one or making sure hot water is getting past the hot water valve assuming you have one installed.

[Chris Codd]

The radiator was dry tonight when I checked. I topped it off and i'll see how it looks tomorrow. I'll have to try one of those sealers Tony. I do have oil leaking from the valve cover that needs to be taken care of. Jason was nice enough to sell me some new gaskets. I just need to get around to changing them. I'll check out my thermostat as well. 

[Chris Codd]

I'm not ready to reattempt to tackle the A/C. Got extremely expensive quite quickly. I believe that I may have gotten a whiff of that bittersweet smell you may be talking about, but it isn't very often. 

[Jason Edge]

Little heat could be a lot of things and probably not from a leak. If you have a leak you can usually smell the coolant bitter sweet smell in the cabin. If you have the AC/Heat comfort control there could be many things including the power servo not pulling the blend door back to let air through the heater core, a heater control valve that is sticking/binding, or vacuum hooked up incorrectly (heater control valve lets water thru with not vacuum, and closes it with vacuum).   Again if your radiator is topped off with coolant it should not affect the heating of the car unless it gets really low, then you have other problems.  For the AC/Heat or Heat, that's another ball of yarn to get into and if you have AC I would pick up Cadillac Tim (Groves) excellent manual.  His contact info is listed on our Parts Suppliers page.

[Chris Codd]

My heater core may very well be leaking now that you mention it Tony. I have had low to very minimal heat if you can even call it heat. The pipes give off smoke, but I think it's mostly because of the temperature and the exhaust smell hasn't had any noticeable changes. The smoke goes away after it's warmed up. Hoping it's not a head gasket because the engine was rebuilt only a few years ago. I haven't seen any leaks on the ground except for a little oil. The oil doesn't have the milky color that usually accompanies a blown head gasket. Russ, I've gone through an entire coolant container from autozone since this past summer. I'll be checking the thermostat out to see if that is the culprit for the lack of heat. 

[Chris Codd]

Thank you for the information. I am not sure where the coolant is disappearing to because I haven't seen any leaks on the ground. I'll have to check the cap out and see if that's the problem. At least that part should be cheap to replace. 

[Jason Edge]

Dan is correct. Unless you are leaking coolant. over heating issues, or have a defective or incorrect radiator cap you should not have to constantly refill it  I check mine regularly as I'm protective about the rebuilt engine, only have to top it off maybe every few months.