I just changed my opti, waterpump, coil. I'm driving for a week and I'm still getting a little flutter lack of power as I take off. As I'm inspecting connections etc. I'm under the car and a rust color, the EXACT color on this page is on the bottom of the water pump in 3 areas. Right down the middle and on each side. I touch it and it's very thick. Of course I have just changed the radiator fluid and did not see one ounce of this in the fluid. To add insult to injury, I can see that there is moisture on the top and probably the side of my NEW OPTI!. Additionally, it is idling very steadily hard. Before; the idle was a little ruff, but now its very noticable and the car sounds like it's got a miss even more now. Has this happened to anyone? Please help
94 LT1, all stock with the only mod are flowmaster, chrome tips and metal elbow duct. Changed opti, coil, waterpump, TPS, MAF. Prior to this, it started loosing power until 1500 to 2000 RPM and when flooring it, got a small pop of backfire.

 

Did you replace any of the seals in the timing cover? It is possible you are leaking oil out either the opti seal or the water pump drive seal in the timing cover. Are you throwing any SES codes with these problems?

 

when i purchased the opti everything was already assembled and when i went to the shop to purchase an opti seal, they didn't know what i was talking about and truthfully i've never seen one. Also when i removed the old one, i didnt see anything like a seal or anything. I was really careful to reassemble in the same manner as taking apart. Will i have to remove this and re-install it? Is this liquid rust?

 

not on the opti. On the timing cover. Either were the opti plugs in or were the waterpump drive goes into the cover.

 

I'm guessing you have an automatic? sounds like tranny fluid, is this substance slippery like an oil or more water based - is the radiator old, damaged? see any leak around where the tranny lines go into the radiator? of course, if you have an M6 then disregard all of this

 

While not totally impossible, it would be very hard for tranny fluid to make its way onto the waterpump. I jut tore my motor apart and I had a small leak where the waterpump drive goes thru the cover. Oil was everywhere.

 

thanks for your help, i would believe that the radiator is the original and i have 140,000 miles on the car (VERY WELL MAINTAINED). I guess that it could be tranny fluid, but like you said it IS very thick. If I have to I'll have to take off the new water pump and opti and put that seal on. Here goes another 2 days lol!

 

I once had a in radiator tranny cooler puke fluid into the coolant. BAD BAD THING. Does the coolant look good otherwise?

 

The coolant looks great, I just changed it last week. I'm really wondering if I should actually take all of this off again if it is actually the seal. I didn't see anything when I removed it.

 

My point was, that when I took mine off, I figured I would replace it with new. When you do disassmble, you should inspect your seals to see if they are damaged.Do you have any leaking onto the timing cover. If it is dry, then most likely you are ok.