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!

 

[v8s_are_slow]

okay here's what i did. i went and bought some water wetter and threw that in with just straight water (not in the mood to pay $10 for antifreeze for nothing). anyway, it took a lot longer for it to get hot but still got hot. drove it down the highway and then turned down my road. drove it for about 2 miles at 25 mph and it got up to 199. parked in my driveway and shut it down at 217. hmmm.....so the problem is still there. but getting better.

my radiator cap is a 13lb cap. i was looking at machv at their cap which is a 19lb cap and says the stock one is 15. would the 2 pounds make that big a difference? what about the 19? think that could solve my problem? i need to kinda fix this quick....if it's even possible.

what about timing? i mean my timing is set at 5. but i'm wondering cause my head has been shaved down to the minimum.

i have a metal head gasket and i'm not losing water, but if the arp studs weren't tight enough could that maybe cause some kinda problem? i'm just trying to look at any and all problems. it hasn't really had this problem as bad until my head gasket blew a few weeks ago. now it just wants to keep climbing up. hmmm.....

 

[Defiant]

drove it for about 2 miles at 25 mph and it got up to 199. parked in my driveway and shut it down at 217. hmmm.....so the problem is still there. but getting better.

Um.... that's about normal operating temperature for a DSM. You aren't overheating.

Put that 190° thermostat back in. Lower-temp thermostats don't run an engine any cooler, they just slow down their ability to reach operating temperature.

Sorry about missing the new radiator in your first post.

 

[v8s_are_slow]

nah, ain't doing that till i can get it to stop running that high. i had the 180 stat in there and it'd overheat faster. and i shut it down at 217. i didn't say that was the operating temp. it's still climbing, i just happen to shut it down before that. and at highway speeds, the temp stays around 165. till i start driving slow. and 217 isn't normal for my car. i know my car adn that ain't it. at least with the 160 stat in there it takes longer before it overheats.

just need to know what's causing it though.

 

[95JTalonTSI]

ive gone over the same problem as you, tried 3 different types of slim line fans. I even fabricated heat shields and all. I thought it might be due to spacing issues with the slim line fans, but nope. So after doing tests and researching. It comes down to this. Do the slim line fans have large shrouds like the stock fans??? probably not unless they are the expensive 375.00 duo in shrouded fan set. The company that makes these fans can be found in any tuner book, i believe they are flex a lite, or something like that, they are just like stock with a shroud and all, just much slimmer. It's all about the shroud trust me. I took every slim line fan i bought back to the venders. I slapped the stock back on and just modified to accompany the swinging elbow on the 50trim. My word of advice is, put your stoock fans back in. You should notice a diff. I never had overheating issues again.

hope this helped....

big turbo

 

[v8s_are_slow]

the dang thing still overheats. no one has any ideas? the only thing really helping me right now is having the water and water wetter and the 160 stat in there. i know i need a higher temp stat but not until i can get it to stop overheating when sitting still....no one has any other ideas? thinkin maybe headgasket is allowing exhaust to get to the coolant somehow? it's a metal gasket and i have a newly shaved head. and if that were the ase i'd think i'd at least be leaking coolant. hmmm...i dunno. someone help me out here. thanks!

scott

 

[T9S1i]

alright, my car overheated like on monday... tuesday morning i refill the coolant, go for a drive for about 20 min, i got a CEL for a coolant temp sensor (borrowed my friends logger to check) but other than that all was good... i get home look at my temp gauge and its right in the middle, i literally make a U turn and park in front of my house and the car is all the way hot (like 15sec after it was normal) and it over heats.... so yesterday i took the car to my boy's shop and i changed my oil, thermostat, and coolant temp sensor, and then i do a coolant flush...drive the car for like 45 min, get home and it overheats.... this morning i change the rad. cap and refill with coolant... drive around for a while and its getting somewhat hot and i keep my heater on and it goes up to the Hot line on the gauge but never over... then i just got it home (after like 30 min of driving and some short drives throughout the day) and the car is bubbling coolant out the overflow bottle... every time this has happened the coolant has been boiling when i got home tonight it was almost to the red(good thing i got home in time) the coolant is going through both hoses to the radiator because the top one is always hot and the bottom always warm.... also a side note my car seems to heat up easier with fast driving (>50mph) and stays about the "mp" of temp with normal city driving (<35mph)... i would have thought that it would cool better the faster i went.... i have not brought the car over 4k rpm since it originally overheated so im stumped to what it is.... ive never heard my primary fan go on while driving or at a stop sign, but every time my temp gauge went over the p in temp i would push the ac button till it was green and have my heat blasting just to keep it in check... then both fans would go on but usually only then... also when i would get home and park the car the fan would not come on by itself i would have to run the heater to get both fans on until the car cooled down... all of this really sucks because my local track opens this wednesday and i was looking forward to the new race season :thumbdown :thumbdown :thumbdown
now im thinking most people are going to reply saying its a blown head gasket, and i havent done a recent compression check (last time like 2 months ago they were all in the vicinity of 140) but what i want to know is with these symptoms is there anything else that i should check first before i jump to the conclusion of a BHG???
i dont have a logger yet b/c i need a cable so i dont know the excact engine temps my car is running at (although i can tell its hot since the coolant is bubbling)

any help or input is appreciated..

thanks

Danny

 

[jfdid]

This is going to sound like I'm talking to a four year old, but are you POSITIVE that your coolant is FULL? How are you filling it up?

The correct way to do it is to idle your car while pouring in the coolant so your water pump can circulate the coolant while you're pouring, getting rid of any air bubbles.

Anyways, the reason I say this is because if you're low on coolant, you'll get air bubbles, you'll "overheat" because you don't have enough coolant, but enough to boil out. A fairly easy, yet not fully reliable, way to check this is to warm the car up, and look for the signs of overheating, temp gauge on the rise past normal, then rev the car to 6000 RPM and see if the gauge goes down. If it does, then you're missing some coolant, if it doesn't, look somewhere else.

Again, it may sound dumb, and it should go without saying, but make for damn sure.

 

[T9S1i]

i did that last night when i did the coolant flush... it still overheated... today when i topped it off (twice) i did it cold.... tomorrow ill let it idle and wait for the tstat to open up and continue filling.... but every other time ive done it the right way it still over heated.....

does overheating mean my head gasket is gonna blow? oil is always clean... not milky at all??

what should i check for...
anyone in the san francisco bay area know a store that sells water wetter??? cant seem to find it anywhere and would like to try it although it will probably all just boil out after the first day that i pour it in


thanks

danny

 

[1gdsmraider]

ok first:
Make sure you're mixing the coolant right.. that would do it.

second:
The Oil wouldn't be milky if you're HG was blown. Your Coolant would be milky from oil leaking into the coolant. Thats the easy way to tell if your HG is gone is by milky coolant.

third:
Take your Radiator and have it flushed and check for leaks.... Sorry if i repeated anything you said you had checked earlier.

Ps i just thought of this. Check and make sure your fans are running and the fuse isn't blown to it. Ive had that happen to me a few times. I fixed the fuse and was good to go!

 

[Defiant]

The Oil wouldn't be milky if you're HG was blown. Your Coolant would be milky from oil leaking into the coolant. Thats the easy way to tell if your HG is gone is by milky coolant.

Not if it's leaking straight from the cylinder to a coolant passage, without breaching an oil gallery.

Head gasket's my first guess, and whatever other damage has been added-on by driving it like that.

 

[T9S1i]

ok... planning on doing a head gasket, timing belt, water pump job... this should theoretically fix the problem right???

i plan do fill up my coolant one last time and take it for a drive because my buddy told me to check for cold spots on the radiator to see if it was clogged at all... is there any other way of checking for a clogged radiator??? any last things i should check before i decide to pull the head?? if i do pull the head i think im gonna have all my valve seals replaced.. if i dont have any bent valves waht other upkeep of the head should i do?? my friends dad owns a machine shop so any head work i get done is free... i just need the parts

any last things to check for overheating problem?
once again... new:
-thermostat
-coolant temp sensor
-rad, cap
-oil change (was a lil low...and time for a change anyways)
-coolant flush
and is still overheating

otherwise im gonna do what i said above...

thanks

 

[skinnyt]

after all that changen you did i would say water pump and if that dont fix it then do the head gasket...but first do the water pump just do that first and if that dont work then u got a job on your hands with head gasket.

 

[harjms]

Be sure to have your deck resurfaced before you put the head back on. That way it'll be even somewhat(assuming your bottom end is still plane) ...have them replace any springs that seem bad and have them redo the gaps. mine only costed me $200 to get it all done and my dad is a machinist.

 

[Pro3racer]

if someone can add to this problem, i am having the same problem, and would very much appreciate it if someone can add to the thread. Thanks

 

[Pro3racer]

My car has a bad overheating problem. It starts fine, and i get nice heat in the car, then my temp rises and i lose all heat in the cabin. I have traced it down to a heater realted problem(at least i'm pretty sure). I can smell a trace of coolant with the heat on(when its warm), could that be a hose/core??

 

[Shadowofoblivio]

you are most likely getting vapor lock, bleed the coolant system and see if that helps.

 

[Piranhaman33]

when my heater core went i'd smell coolant in the cabin and the floorboard where the pedals are would be wet.......i hope its not your core cause that was a pain in the ass to replace. :thumbdown

 

[5150DSM]

I obviously don't EVER use the heater for warmth; however, I had an overheating problem and would use the heater to bleed off heat. I could smell coolant all over the place, in the cabin, in the engine bay, ten feet from the car. Anyway, it turned out to be a small tear in one of the heater core hoses, it was split right at the clamp and really hard to see without a flashlight.

 

[Pro3racer]

yea, even though i live in wisconsin, i'm just going to loop the hoses, and not have any heat, who cares. I need the car to run, badly. Can anyone point my in the right direction to correctly looping the heater hoses.Thanks

 

[Pro3racer]

I'm going to first loop the heater hoses, to cancel out the heater core, i like to isolate items, so thats on the agenda for tomorrow. I probably should have blead the system before i took the entire engine compartment apart to get easier access to stuff, oh well.

 

[Defiant]

Losing heat can be a symptom of a low coolant level. Do a pressure-test on your cooling system.

 

[Defiant]

Do not bump your thread. It gets them closed.

Replace your radiator cap and thermostat.

Is that a new water pump?

 

[Pro3racer]

The weird thing is though, is that when i lose heat, and my temperature gauges shoots up, its all at the same time, and happens very quickly, i mean very quickly. My temp gauge goes from normal to the HOT line, within 200 feet, and i lose heat with a snap of my fingers. I'm looping my heater hoses today and tomorrow(i have to work tonite, so i don't have enough time). We'll do a test after that and see whats up.

 

[T9S1i]

alright i guess im just gonna check 2m on the radiator temp by hand and if its cold then ill get it cleaned or checked and if its hot then im gonna do the head gasket, water pump, timing belt job.... probably get new valveseats and of course ill get it resurfaced... thanks for the input guys when im done with the big job ill post and tell you if it worked... cant wait to get it done b/c the track over here opened up and ive been itchin to get up there and get some 2005 timeslips!!!

 

[dawgedeclipse]

That wont do you much good. The reason your over heating and not getting any heat to the cabin is your waterpump is shot. I had a 97 intrepid, damn pump froze right up, it would over heat in just a few seconds, but I had no heat inside the car. I can almost assure you this is the problem. That or a shut down tight thermostat. Check both.