Car Overheated / Overheating / Overheats [MERGED]

[NTRCOOL]

OVERHEATING? The issues and their solutions have remained the same- either you don't have enough cool air reaching the rad, there's a cooling system obstruction which is preventing coolant from circulating, or your head gasket has failed and is allowing coolant to be consumed or pushed away from the engine.

Discuss all possible overheating problems and solutions here.


OK,
I just left my house to go over to my GF's,and happen to look down and see my needle right before the red mark. This just happened out of nowhere. I stop the car as quickly as i can, and pour in some coolant(Coolant a little low). Still same thing. Welp im in the middle of the road, and HAD to get it home. Im only 5 min from my house. I decided to try and make it(I really had no other choice). Welp I drive no faster than 20mph, and the temp needle is BARELY into the red the whole way.And occasionaly to the left of it. Am I ok?? Do ya think any damage was done?? And im thinking either thermostat, or water pump. For each of those, whats a round about $$ figure to get replaced?? Any info you have would be GREATLY appreciated!

 

[Rock2610d]

Only when motor reaches the correct temp one will turn on. Other should turn on with AC. Was there smoke coming from one of them?

 

[iiNFAMOUSCHRiS]

no, they won't spin until the car reaches a certain temperature. hop in the car, turn the AC on and see if they spin. the AC compressor turning on will turn the fans on immediately.

 

[dsmkid2]

Where's the antifreeze tank is it the one near the intake with green fluid? And I have to poor the antifreeze under the radiator cap right?

 

[BurrowZ]

I personally have to disagree with this. I agree 8 or 10 quarts might cause issues but not 2 additional quarts. I am trying to remember but the bottom of the block widens out pretty good and 2 additional quarts would probably just add a couple inches to the depth of the oil.

I can't add anything to the overheating issue but I wanted to touch on this a bit.

I had broken my dipstick in half not too long after buying my 2G doing the first oil change on it. I wound up buying a dipstick off of eBay months later and didn't even compare it to my old one. However, it was shorter than normal so I overfilled it by a quart or so. I probably made it maybe 500 miles and then I noticed my oil pressure dropping at idle. Car had no oil pressure issues before this. After noticing this I headed home and was 5 blocks away going uphill when the motor started knocking and seized a block later. The main bearings completely seized up and it was pretty ugly. Machinist said overfilling the oil could have definitely done this.

TL;DR, overfilling is harmful as well.

 

[zachwilliams02]

hey guys I just had an over heating problem. I was driving hard on my car then I stopped in traffic and was waiting for the light to change. my cel came on so I looked at the temp gauge and it was rising. so it cooled off when I started moving but when I parked it I went to feel the hoses and they were almost empty. then my reservoir was full when I know I was low yesterday. so I assumed a bad cap. but I pulled the cap later that day and I can move both parts of it fine. is it possible that it was just stuck?

 

[eclipsyco]

hey guys I just had an over heating problem. I was driving hard on my car then I stopped in traffic and was waiting for the light to change. my cel came on so I looked at the temp gauge and it was rising. so it cooled off when I started moving but when I parked it I went to feel the hoses and they were almost empty. then my reservoir was full when I know I was low yesterday. so I assumed a bad cap. but I pulled the cap later that day and I can move both parts of it fine. is it possible that it was just stuck?

Just change the cap don't risk it is cheap. If you reached the temp to the point CEL came on you might want to check if everything is all right too.

 

[kamikazeredneck]

Just change the cap don't risk it is cheap. If you reached the temp to the point CEL came on you might want to check if everything is all right too.

I completely agree with this. Just change the cap. the cap might move under your hands but it is designed to open at a certain pressure and if it is not opening at that pressure then it could be what is keeping coolant in the overflow tank instead of allowing it to go into the engine like it's supposed to.

 

[nicks1999spy]

i had this problem this yr after putting a turbo build together turned out to be my slim fans i had them mounted as pushers and not pullers had to swithch that but i wrapped my manifold with wrap cause its tubuler gets kinda hot and deffinetly check thermostat and hoses or leaks

you can aslo over heat it if ## fans aint coming on or if you have a front mount that is blocking the rad to were its not getting enough air

 

[jrwells828]

Okay. Here is the deal. I have a 1990 Eclipse GSX. Just finally got her running again and then came to realize she was overheating. Some modifications have been made whilst attempting to fix the overheating issue.

When we pulled the radiator, brown muddy water came out (I already checked and have confirmed to busted head gasket). When we saw this, we thought the radiator was the issue and thats that. After putting everything back together, including an all aluminum radiator, the car seemed to run fine.

I took the car on the road and then low and behold, she overheats. I park and noticed a trail of coolant and then a huge puddle under the car. The overflow hose from the coolant resorvoir dumped all the coolant. Also, it appears that is coolant leaking from the coolant temp sensor..or possibly the sensor that has the two vacuum lines coming out of it.

Now to the point, I am trying to get a better idea of what may cause the overheating before I continue spending more money. I already bought a new water pump but havent done an istall yet. It sounds like that same muddy water may still be in the pump. I also planned to buy a new coolant temp sensor for replacement.

On a final note, it seems like the car WILL NOT overheat in idle whatsoever and appears that it doesnt overheat when driving under normal conditions. It was when I opened her up when I started to see the temp rising and then voila, coolant came dumping out of the overflow hose.

If you have any ideas or could at least confirm my suspicions of the water pump, that would be frickin great. I have been trying to get her on the road for nearly 8 months now. The previous owner left me with quite the mess.

 

[eDeclpse92]

Sounds like you might have a clog somewhere as you were stating that you had some pretty bad coolant come out. I would do a flush just to be sure. A kit from the store is pretty cheap.

Another problem could be a bad water pump. I saw you bought another one so after that gets installed, let us know what happens.

You might want to also let the coolant system "burp" when putting coolant in your car. Fill it up all the way cold, then let the car idle to operating temperature so the thermostat opens and when the coolant starts to enter the engine, add more as needed until it is full and usually while doing that, you will get almost all of the air out of the system. (not sure if you knew what this was so I just explained it anyways)

Make sure your fans are kicking on too. Good job on replacing the temp sensor but if you had a volt meter laying around, they are pretty easy to check. I believe if you ohm it out, the sensor should have a resistance of:
32* - 5900 ohms
68* - 3500 ohms
104* - 2700 ohms
176* 300 ohm

at these temperatures. A sensor could be causing you to run too lean which in turn makes you run hot like you are describing at a WOT scenario.

Hope some of this information helps! Let us know what you find. Good luck!

 

[VtecvrsTurbo]

I didnt see anywhere in your post that you actually replaced the headgasket. You did replace this right?

 

[DSM1G90]

What I was wondering, esp when the overflow bottle puked out all of the coolant.

HG isn't seating too good.

Don't like to hear blown HG's for things get all warped afterwards and nothing will seat perfectly flat.

 

[__89TalonTYLER_]

Had this happen to me too. My guess is that your vac lines are crossed going into the throttle body. My car is different, canadian care but trace yours out.

On mine the green and yellow which are coolant lines where feeding into the throttle body where the egr red black where suppose to go, was suppose to burn off erg gas but coolant pumps into intake when it warms up, into the intake, at high rpm water pump has more pressure circulating, pressure pushes more coolant through your coolant into intake. I'm thinking, big badda boom, coolant everywhere.

on mine yellow and green on top (closed loop), red black egr towards front side of throttle body-into intake, as I said a canadian car could be different, trace yours out, and check your oil to see if it has antifreeze in it. Is possible if they the vac lines are crossed, coolant goes into intake, into valve cover, into engine... Fuel purge solenoid is on drivers side(or middle if you only have 2 solenoids), egr solenoid on passenger side above brake master cylinder, that's how mine is anyway

I lock my car now.

 

[MitsubishiLover1996]

So this morning my car was feeling normal till I got it on the road, the car started vibrating a lot, very tipsy. But I saw that it wasn't overheating or anything yet so I turned around and drove it home. When I was close to my house it started overheating so I turned it off. I noticed right away a really big coolant leak and it sounded like if a hose was being burned by acid, it was a really loud acidy noise. My car never did this and the thing is that I recently changed the coolant temperature sensor myself, I was wondering if it could be that? I noticed it wasn't all the way in so I tighten more and thought my problem was solved but it's still overheating when I try to drive it. Help?

 

[awd_some]

By acidic sound, could that have been some coolant burning off the exhaust somewhere? Was your coolant overflow tank full? Also, what about the thermostat? Is it stock or have your checked? I might be sticking. Pretty common with those cars.

 

[MitsubishiLover1996]

Yeah, it sounded like the coolant burning somewhere in the engine, I even have a video of it. And the tank was empty when I checked. Thermostat is stock.

 

[PlanZero]

Chances are the leak was your overflow tank boiling over. First, check to make sure that your radiator fans are turning on when they're supposed to. When I replaced my ect sensor my fans acted all screwy (I wound up replacing the ect sensor connector as well). If the fans are working properly your thermostat is probably stuck. Take your radiator cap off, start the car and make sure the coolant starts circulating after a few mins. If not, change your thermostat. Don't forget a new gasket. I tried to reuse the old one and got major leakage. Also, put a new radiator hose on as well since the overheating probably swelled it.

 

[slickers111]

Derp. First, find the leak. If its leaking, thats an issue in itself.
Acidic sound? Boiling coolant? Bleed the system after you fix the coolant leak.

 

[ohlegend]

I had this issue with my old civic. If it continues to overheat, you may have a blown head gasket.
Are you blowing white smoke out of the exhaust?

 

[lucid15]

So im having a weird overheating issue at the moment... I noticed one day that my temps were getting a bit high in correlation to my RPMs but never all the way to the top of the gauge. I got home, popped the hood and notcied my overflow was still full. So i put some more coolant in the radiator cap (about a half quart) and the car was fine for about 2-3 days until the same problem occurred again.

Now, i know my water pump is slightly leaking, and the car is set to go into the shop later this week for a FULL 90k service (timing belt, water pump, oil pump, EVERY upper and lower seal, HG, and ARP studs). But what does this sound like the problem is? It clearly isnt taking any of the coolant in the overflow bottle... could it be too full so its not being pressurized correctly, or some other problem?

 

[my dreamt dsm]

After a good drive see if the top and bottom hoses are hot. Could be your thermostat is not opening. How is the fluid in the radiator? Is it still full or is it somewhat low when you lose coolant.

 

[srumel]

I had identical symptoms when my pressure cap went bad.

 

[lucid15]

Interesting... Ill have him replace the T-stat and cap and see if that fixes it.

 

[1point8Ltpower]

I had a crack in the line going to the overflow bottle that allowed coolant to be pushed to the bottle, but it would suck air back in while leaving the bottle full. Cheapest repair to date.

 

[GST Charade]

most likely your thermostat