Overheatn

S

Sneth

Registered
Coolant system 'was' flushed and bled about 3 months ago. Everything was fine.

-The car heats up fast,5 min of suburb driving
--Low coolant Message
---Engine Temp Message
----Coolant boils out of the resivoir
-----Temp needle bounces back down, and seems to run fine.
-------At stop, refill resivoir, all is well.


The plug at the top of the coolant pipe is stripped. I am brainstorming how to get this off as of now. If i pull the tubing off, it has coolant in there. I can feel coolant going through the tubes. So it's not a giant air bubble at least. As a nasty side effect of coolant boiling over, the belt sqeels like a banshee. Lovely.

Diagnosis?
 
Sneth said:
-----Temp needle bounces back down
Click to expand...

Typical of air in system.

You can purchase a new crossover fill plug. I used a bit of heat from a propane torch and a giant set of channel locks to loosen the plug.
 
I bet you a cookie you have air in the crossover tube. The reservoir is just an expansion tank, adding coolant to it does nothing - honestly.

If I had to guess, you reservoir tank cap is shot and not holding the pressure back or t-stat is stuck closed. Since pressure can not be kept, your coolant is boiling. This results in air bubbles being produced which get trapped in the crossover. The more air that gets trapped, the hotter the coolant, the more air. Its a vicious cycle. A FOR SURE sing this is happening is that the needle bounces. In fact, its probably goes down because its being exposed to air - the coolant can easily get that low.

You need to get that crossover tube open. A vise grip or carefully placed plumbers wrench may work. Remember when you do put it back on, it does not have to be tight. The system pressurizes to 16 psi - max, thats not mush really.

You need to NOT drive the car and get the air out of the crossover and maybe replace the t-stat if a complete and proper re-burp and new reservoir cap fixes nothing.
 
Sneth......

Let the car cool, pull BOTH of the radiator hoses coming off of the crossover tube, but pull BOTH of the hoses that go down, not the top ones. Fill each of these hoses with coolant and clamp them back on. This is eccentially like filling it with that plug off. I had this same issue...stripped crossover tube plug.

Fill both of those hoses and re-install them and than start the vehicle and run it with the Coolant resevoir cap off. Go inside the car and turn ON the FLOOR vents with the heat at max. Once you start getting Warm/Hot air coming out of the inside vents you've got flow and everything is bled.

If the system is bled properly and you're still getting an overheating problem, it sounds like the thermostat is stuck shut.

Damn...you guys beat me! I got a freaken phone call!!! Sneth.....try my fill process first before you FBAR the x-over plug, that way we know that you just had air in the system and you don't have other issues.
 
Big girl needs a burpin i guess.
i live downtown apt now, so it's hard for me to get garage time.

The reservoir cap is holding pressure at the moment.
 
Oh.....another good suggestion would be to do my precedure on a hill with the nose UP so that when you re-install the hoses and back it down to a flat surface, the coolant will fill up the X-over tube.
 
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