2nd radiator death in 3 weeks? What is the deal?

[karbon]

Tonight the car overheated on the way home from work. I pull over and the reservoir is dry. A squeeze of the upper hose suggests that it's also bone dry. There is white residue all over the radiator.

3 weeks ago the same thing happened: radiator puked coolant all over the engine bay. The radiator was leaking coolant from the top of the core when I fill it up. I determine that a 13-year old radiator has to die sometime and order/install another.

I take my first drive with the new radiator and when I shut the car off, it's blowing bubbles in the radiator overflow bottle. I read up on the problem and it seems that most of the time, it's a leaky radiator cap. So I buy/install a new radiator cap and thermostat for good measure. No more bubbles when I shut the car off. Everything seems fine now.

Fast forward to today: seems the same thing happened. I know the radiator isn't the problem this time, so what could it be now? Head gasket?

 

[solidviper89]

Maybe you got a bad radiator. I'm no expert but would suggest to flush out your cooling system, and maybe change your water pump.

 

[tenn-gsx]

Check all of your coolant hoses to make sure none of them have a pin hole or anything. I sugguest you pressurize your coolant system and look for leaks.

 

[GRAVEDIGGER]

Do you daily drive the car? The reason I ask is that I'm wondering if there's anyway that you may have never got it topped off all the way when you installed the new thermostat and radiator cap. If you dd the car and it's been fine for a week or two, then we can rule that out. Also, how low is the coolant in the radiator? Must be pretty low if it overheated.

 

[karbon]

Yes, the car's a daily driver. I stopped checking the fluid level after a few days of it not going anywhere. I figured I was safe. When I replaced the cap/thermostat, I burped the system the best I could with the car running. I capped it off when it was full and no more bubbles showed up.

The water pump was brand new when I did the timing belt this summer. I'd like to think it hasn't gone bad since then.

I'm going to check for leaks that may have developed and update as appropriate.

 

[16gpoweredgsx]

Are your fans turning on at all, b/c if they're not then that will cause the coolant to eventually get too hot and create too much pressure and blow the endtanks on the radiator.

 

[karbon]

Are your fans turning on at all, b/c if they're not then that will cause the coolant to eventually get too hot and create too much pressure and blow the endtanks on the radiator.

I can turn on the fans through DSMLink, so that should mean everything's good.

 

[16gpoweredgsx]

Does dsmlink use the a/c override to turn the fans on? Because I had this problem on my 1g when I first got it and my fans were not turning on unless I turned the a/c on which runs both fans continuously, and it turned out that my colling fan relay was shot and the a/c overrides that and your temp sensors and runs both fans full blast.

 

[karbon]

Does dsmlink use the a/c override to turn the fans on? Because I had this problem on my 1g when I first got it and my fans were not turning on unless I turned the a/c on which runs both fans continuously, and it turned out that my colling fan relay was shot and the a/c overrides that and your temp sensors and runs both fans full blast.

I'm not sure, but when I shut the car off after it was overheating, the fans were running at the time, so it works as normal.

Anyway, I fixed the issue. I jumped the gun on the diagnosis of "radiator death" because I had one fail 3 weeks ago. All I saw was that vaporized coolant was EVERYWHERE in my engine bay and the radiator was smoking. As it turns out, it was smoking because the coolant supply hose to the oil cooler sprung a leak and hosed the radiator down and it was burning it off.

When it rains it pours, I guess. At least with DSMs. Thanks for the suggestions, everyone.