1995 pontiac transport 3.8 intake manifold gasket failure help needed

Are you sure no one put sealer in the radiator? May have been done at the dealer as part of a TSB.

no..the van sat for a year, I replaced the transmission and checked all fluids..then 2 days later after a few drives I rechecked everything and it looks like transmissio flid in my rad (oil and the orange dexcool crap) I am reading the intake gasket is starting to go..

You know that there's a transmission oil cooler in the radiator don't you?

The 3.8 didn't suffer as much from intake gasket leaks as it did from the intake upper plenum melting where the EGR valve dumps in, and your 95 may actually have the old style plastic plenum which wasn't failure prone at all. Old style = EGR valve mounted forward of the throttle body Late style = EGR valve mounted behind the throttle body.

Let's try to look at this logically, ok? You have what you think is transmission fluid in your radiator fluid......it's far more likely that you have a transmission cooler leak then an intake leak. Even if the intake gasket is/was leaking, if you understand where the gasket is located in relationship to engine oil, there is almost no chance of getting engine oil into the coolant because of a leaking intake gasket. I've probably done hundreds of intake manifold gasket repairs, and I don't recall ever seeing one where engine oil got into the coolant because of the intake gasket. But I have seen hundreds of examples where the trans cooler inside the radiator leaks trans fluid into the coolant.

Ian

I suppose that if you are the one that installed the external trans cooler, you would know if it bypasses the factory setup. Most technicians would not bypass the factory one, but simply install the external one in series with the factory one.

Ian

dex looks like oil when its old and give out.