Noob with 99 Grand Prix. Just saying hi and introducing myself

Hey guys, my name is Doug, I live in Florida and I just recently bought a '99 Pontiac Grand Prix V6 3.1L. I only gave $750 for it. As you can imagine anything that you pay that low needs allot of tlc. I haven't yet had a good look at it, I just drove it home last night. From what I could tell over all it's a good solid car and no rust. It drove home good, the engine and transmission have just over 200K miles but it sounds good and smooth. The low coolant light came on. I pulled over and couldn't see or smell any leaking coolant and the reservoir was still full so carefully watching the temp gauge I continued on home. The few things I could tell right away that need attention is I need to replace all the window regulators and the window tint needs redoing. The a/c and heat blower motor wont turn on, that could just be a resistor or the motor itself. I want to replace both the front and rear light housings. The rear is weathered and cracked up and the front is yellowed and the front right turning lens is missing. Other then that it was what you'd expect a used worn car to be like at that age. The interior is in decent shape, no rips or tears in the seats. The carpet is worn on the drivers side front. It could uses some cleaning. This will probably be a never ending work in progress. I found that forums come in really handy with other cars that Ive owned in the past and I thought I'd get a build thread going on it and share my progress.

Well today I got a closer look and see that it has a lower intake manifold coolant leak towards the back of the engine. I got all the gaskets to do the job and plan on tearing it down Thanksgiving weekend. It's parked and not going anywhere until I get this fixed. An external leak is fine but if the coolant leak progressed into the oil passages then it could cause some serious damage.

After reading your introduction, I had a feeling it was the LIMG. The 3100 & 3400 are notorious for going through them. My Beretta had the same problem. Do you plan on replacing the head gasket as well? Probably wouldn't be a bad idea.

Welcome to the site and good luck with your ride.

Welcome to the site

Well, I just finished. I put it off and just got around to it this past weekend. I didnt bother with the head gaskets. I had to do a little extra cleaning while I had it apart. When I took the valve covers off it was a ton of oil sludge build up. I was careful cleaning and used a shop vac to suck up the chunks while scraping. I also fallowed up with a rinse with aerosol break parts cleaner with the shop vac. Im happy, It all came pretty clean. It's running nicely but Im picking up some codes with the scanner. I'll wright up another post with the codes but Im getting PO650 MIL Control Circuit Malfunction and PO449 EVAP Emission Control System Vent VLV/SOL Malfunction. I looked around online and found to check around the rear of the driver side for the EVAP vent. I read that is a common problem with our cars. But as for the MIL Im guessing it may be the engine service soon bulb thats burnt out. It wont even illuminate in the beginning when the car has just started. I'll have to pull out the cluster to see if it's the culprit.

Originally Posted by DougieFresh

This will probably be a never ending work in progress.

^^^This is a NO SH!T statement haha. Sorry about the late welcome, but.....welcome to GPF. Start a members ride thread. Post all the work you have done so far in that.