okay here goes..

my brother has a 2001 blazer. the motor had intake manifold gaskets go on it before he bought it and the motor blew up. motor was replaced and new "gm fix it" intake manifold gaskets were put on it. engine has around 60,000 miles and truck has 120,000 on body/trans

he is getting a very bad antifreeze smell in the inside of the blazer with the heat on. it is down right horrible. i can't stand driving it for more then 5 minutes without getting sick to my stomach

he had a problem with coolant loss with no apparent leaks and now it has slowed down to where he doesn't have to hardly add any coolant. still smells really bad

i won't be able to look at it tell tomorrow (out of state)

he says there is no coolant or wet floor mats on the passenger side. he just continues to add coolant

the heat actually works pretty good just smells.

he took it to a mechanic that my dad trusts and he said it was heater core and not intake manifold gaskets.

now i'm going to look for leaks etc. to validate my brother isn't missing it (he isn't very mechanically inclined)

i'm tempted to pick up a pressure tester too to see if i can find any other leaks in the cooling system (i'm studying to be a mechanic so i'll definitively being using one in the future)

i've had cooling system classes at school so i'm pretty familiar with overall cooling system function and performance but haven't worked on to many blazers.


has anyone seen this is in the blazers before?

any heater core removal links? ( i understand the blazers are one of the more difficult ones)

my planned diagnoses:

verify he is losing coolant and confirm it

search for obvious leaks

check floor mats for coolant saturation

pressure test if no apparent leaks found

what leads me to believe heater core is it is inside the vehicle is that the smell appears to be coming from inside it.

any helpful advice or other diagnosing information i should add to my planned diagnosis ?

i searched some but didn't find completely identical symptoms

thanks

 

One thing you might want to try doing is bypassing the heater core by connecting the two heater hoses together. That way if your pressure test fails and you can't see any hoses leaking then you know it's a gasket issue. The smell may not be the heater core. If coolant is leaking onto the exhaust manifold or other hot spot the fumes can make it into the cabin. I have no idea what the "GM Fixit" gaskets are. Most people here know that using anything less than the high quality Felpro gaskets are asking for a repeat problem down the road.

 

it ended up being the heater core. i found coolant all over the passenger floor mat and once i pulled the dash the bottom side of the heater box has pretty much a pool of coolant

just having problems removing the box...

 

just wanted to give you guys an update.

i finally got the heater core in

all put back together.

had some issues with the vent positions in the switch but figured that out too.

just in time too. we just had 5" of snow drop on us tonight....