Expert: Rob Painter - 2/20/2011

Question
does a 97 northstar have a safety for when the car gets to hot and you try to start it but wont ? i turn the key to crank poss and nuthing dash lites do com on but no cranking. i let it cool and it starts and found out why it over heats plastic tank is cracked and leaking.

Answer
Hello,

Well, when you speak of getting hot, I am assuming you are referring to the cooling system. There is no safety if the engine over heats and you have some very serious issues with that wonderful aluminum engine in your car. Won't be long before you won't have to worry about starting. This engine cannot be overheated!!!

In fact, would not surprise me if the engine has a blown head gasket or two at the minimum. If run above 220 degrees, the aluminum engine is self destructing. 9.5  (or better)out of 10 junk yard engines are junk from over heating and the cost of repairs far exceeds the value of the car and the cost of a new engine from Cadillac will cost $5k installed.

Your starter because of it's age an overheating the engine will either turn over slow or not at all until the engine cools.

So many people think they can get away with running this aluminum engine hot just like an old cast iron Chevy engine. If you look at yesterday's archive answer, you will see the sad results from running one of these engines hot. They literally melt! The block is aluminum, as are the heads, pistons, the intake manifold and heat is this engine's enemy.

If by some miraculousness instance your engine is not destroyed (I have never seen a case in which an engine with merely the hot light on only a couple seconds before being shut down) where the engine didn't have head or head gasket problems as a result at minimum. Cadillac has used an aluminum engine since 1982. The issue is always the same--overheat-junk!

The head gaskets are not the cause, but the affect. Head gaskets don't always go. The block cracks, the heads crack and distort.

To determine if the head gasket(s) are blown are either blows white smoke at the exhaust. Engine oil dip stick is milky color, or you have an external leak.

If you are running this engine hot enough that the engine won't crank till the starter cools off, and you haven't totally destroyed the engine (your luck is fantastic and you should be playing the lottery), you need to fix the cooling system not later--now!!!


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