VS on its last legs, some advice?

[Hangman]

And put a thermostat back in it.

 

[justbad4you]

alternator and coils go starting point

Hi, new here

We have a VS Acclaim sedan and it would seem it's very close to dying completely. In the last few weeks its just going downhill.

It has a
New water pump
New thermostat, was the wrong one, currently has none.
New radiator

Main issues-
The previous rumble (that was mainly an exhaust that needs replacing) is now a full car shudder when its turned on.
The temp gauge is very erratic, but doesn't say its ever on the red even though the cars behaviour says otherwise. Connected to the fact it has no thermostat?
The heater tap leaks and leaves the car steaming and smelling.
Loud sloshing sound (although I read online that could just be water going through the heater core and some cars do it, some don't. Is that right?)
And the loveliest thing of all, when it warms up and you've driven a few kms, the motor starts knocking.

Tried replacing the leads and spark plugs but we didn't have the right tool for the spark plugs. With the leads, well, changed them over and it quietened down and ran better, however by the end of the day it sounded way worse than before so put the old ones back in a day later. We have assumed they were the wrong ones.

So, short of taking it to a mechanic (which is obviously the most logical option), any ideas?

 

[hdtkid]

And the loveliest thing of all, when it warms up and you've driven a few kms, the motor starts knocking.


So, short of taking it to a mechanic (which is obviously the most logical option), any ideas?

Could be your oil pump is a little worn. or very, my Vs did this when i first got it. for a few reasons.
1 previous owner was a lady. so was probably not serviced properly, when i did the first oil change you should have seen the sludge that came out :O i never seen anything like it.
that went on for 2-3 oil changes till it was flushed out. (poor car probably never seen 2500RPM till the day i got it when i got it was auto is now a manual ROFL )

2, my cars had around 240,000 when i got it and after a bit of i suppose you could call it testing.... i found the oils for older engines made this problem worse, normally something like 20w60
then i tried magnatech and the knocking hasn't come back since.


just to give bit more detail.... when my car started to knock coz of this it was like there was no oil at all getting to the heads. just tapping away like crazy. car had no power, and normally happened after i had been giving it a bit of a hard time.

someone also told me you can try flushing it our with diesel grade oil coz it cleans our your engine, but only have it in for around 500ks. then put a good semi or fully synthetic oil in.

 

[justbad4you]

yeah i 2nd that HANG

And put a thermostat back in it.

 

[Gippy]

Hey all, thanks for your advice.
We've taken it to a mechanic who replaced the heater tap and then told us it had a blown head gasket and that it would cost us between $1000-1500 to fix.
And of course at the moment we don't have that kind of money lying around, so we'll have to continue to drive it til it stops.
My bro can get us a new motor with a 3 month warranty for $500. Unfortunately it's 400km away. So now we're just waiting til next pay and then we'll somehow get the vs down there.
So again, thanks for all your advice
Cheers

 

[Andrew426]

Head gasket on a commodore isnt a hard fix, im sure you can find someone to do it for a hundred bucks and a box of beers.

 

[bpefi]

Head gasket on a commodore isnt a hard fix, im sure you can find someone to do it for a hundred bucks and a box of beers.

Not a hard problem to fix but if its like quite a few others the heads are probably cracked between valve seats - & that gets expensive to fix. At least with a $500 motor he knows what its going to cost..

 

[Rhin0o8]

Hey all, thanks for your advice.
We've taken it to a mechanic who replaced the heater tap and then told us it had a blown head gasket and that it would cost us between $1000-1500 to fix.
And of course at the moment we don't have that kind of money lying around, so we'll have to continue to drive it til it stops.
My bro can get us a new motor with a 3 month warranty for $500. Unfortunately it's 400km away. So now we're just waiting til next pay and then we'll somehow get the vs down there.
So again, thanks for all your advice
Cheers

Re-fit the new motor is probably the cheapest way...

then sell your motor for half that price with no head. someone will buy it to rebuild for sure