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!

 

[p5150]

I know for a fact that my problem isnt heatsoak (although I dont think you were referring to me) - something just isnt right. Im going to pull the hoses off of the heater core today and run a garden hose through them. If its clogged im going to pull the core and dump some CLR in it.....

 

[damooch]

Problem solved!! It was a combination of my thermostat and a burst hose.Thermo stuck causing to overheat and a the hose that ran into heater core under the intake burst.However heater core was bad eventhough it ALWAYS has blown hot.Problem was smell and window fog.I installed a return as mentioned and bypassed the heater core and all is good again.No smell,no fog. no leak.Thank you everyone for your advice.DSMers rule.

 

[americanjebus]

i have a 90 laser rs turbo. i was going up a mountain and its a pretty good climb and my car started to overheat. and it doesnt do this in town. i was wondering if it could be the cap or maybe even the thermostat. let me know what you think.

 

[I-luv-em-all]

Could be a number of things, try the easiest first, obviously. Make sure their is a proper amount of coolent in the system. Check the T-stat, water pump, cap, hoses for leaks, anything blocking the rad of air getting to it. But im am thinking in your case it is a leaking head gasket, do a compression test to find that out.

 

[Defiant]

Define "overheat". Did it blow any coolant out, or did the needle on the gauge just move up higher than usual?

 

[BenHenthorn]

I am having overheating problems when I'm driving on the highway, even without the A/C on. My temp gauge goes about 3/4 the way up and DSMLink turns on my CEL. When I got home I opened up the hood and used my laptop to turn on both fans. The slim A/C fan I installed in place of the stock A/C fan was not running, but the other stock fan was.

My question is does the A/C fan only run when the A/C is on or does it also run when the other fan turns on? Because if it only comes on with the A/C then that would not be the main source of my overheating problem. Before discovering the A/C fan problem I've flushed and refilled my coolant and replaced the thermostat. Anything else I should check/try before I go buy a Fluidyne radiator?

Thank you in advance.

 

[Lunch_Box]

If it is wired up like factory then it only comes on when your AC is turned on.

 

[americanjebus]

the needle moved up to the hot and was climbing. so i shut the car off and didnt let it overheat, because i didnt want to worp the head. i could hear the antifreeze boiling and circulating through the engine.

 

[dr1665]

From yourmods, you sound like the type of guy who could wire up a switch for the AC fan. Maybe set it up so that you can activate the second fan based on a temperature switch or a toggle in the cabin. I wouldn't think this mod would cost any more than $30 to install cleanly in an afternoon. I know a couple local DSMers who have done this. Definitely cheaper than a new radiator. That's for sure.

 

[dalepmay]

What I did was pretty simple. Find a wire that has constant power when your ignition is in the Run position (I used a wire on the bottom of the fuse box). Splice into that wire and run it to both fans. That way whenever the car is running, both fans will run, keeping the engine as cool as possible at all times.

 

[BenHenthorn]

What I did was pretty simple. Find a wire that has constant power when your ignition is in the Run position (I used a wire on the bottom of the fuse box). Splice into that wire and run it to both fans. That way whenever the car is running, both fans will run, keeping the engine as cool as possible at all times.

I may end up doing your suggestion dalepmay. Or even your suggestion dr1665, I might like it better having control of my fans within the DSM. But either way I think the fans have to be running all the time, until I have enough money to buy a Fluidyne or Griffin radiator

 

[steve]

You could always use the existing circuit for the cooling fan to trigger a relay to turn on the second fan.

Steve

 

[Defiant]

Were your fans on?

 

[americanjebus]

yes my fans were on, my fans are working fine or at least they seem to be. today i drove it all over the place and it didnt overheat. so i dont know if it is a big deal now, since i got my new muffler the temp seems to be down a little.

 

[CorvetteBoy]

So give us an update here, the car is running ok now? Many things could cause that, but it'll be easier to pin point things if you go into further detail.

If you think its ok now, maybe just inspect the radiator cap and see if coolant is full and if not fill it up. How does the car run under boost? Temps go up at all, or just the time on the mountain?

 

[jrpmp69]

My car just recently started over heating for no reason, i just had the water pump replaced 2 weeks ago and the thermostat 2 days ago but it's still overheating. The radiator was replaced about 4 months ago. I just drove a friend to work and noticed that the temp was at 3/4 while i was on the freeway and at stop lights, when i got back i popped the hood and the fan was working fine, but i did notice that the water lines coming from the radiator didnt have any pressure so i then took the radiator cap off and there was water in the radiator which was boiling.
If anyone can please help me figure out what the problem is before there is any more damage to the engine i would really appreciate it.

 

[speedy13]

when your water lines are sucked in,it means it needs more coolant.Complete it with coolant,make sure there's no air in the system and if it still overheats,do a radiator pressure test to make sure you don't have any leaks.try these out and holla back.

 

[Slother]

As simple as it my sound check your cap, run a pressure test on it if the other stuff doesn't work, a cap that leaks pressure can prevent a cooling system for working correctly

 

[crazyboost]

Im having troubles with my car running hot too, so i have been looking at this problem a lot lately too, i think if you have bubbles in your coolant that means that you have a blown headgasket, is there any white smoke coming out of the exhaust?

 

[dsmpride]

Ok so I live in southern AZ and keeping my car cool and running the AC have been big deals for me. So I've been doing some diagnostics on the car and found that sitting at idle in my garage the thing gets up to about 210 and stays around there (seems normal). Put the ac on it will raise up to about 225 fairly quickly and seems to continue to rise but I don't let it get any hooter than that. My fal fans cycle on and off the way that they should and the one comes on with the ac. Here's the wierd part: I have an aluminum radiator and it seems like it is flowing coolant through it too fast. Even when temp are really high, the coolant system is not pressurized. I know I don't have any leaks 'cause it doesn't consume any water but it is crazy that the radiator hoses are still totally squishy as if the car wasn't ever wamed up.

Could this be at least part of my problem with keeping my car cool. How can I fix it? I know that you can buy flow restrictors for like sb chevys but I haven't seen any for our cars.

Anyway, thanks in advance for your help.

Kent

 

[NinjaTech]

My vote would be to check your pressure cap on the cooling system. If its broken it wont hold any pressure and it will all just bleed off in to the overflow tank. I dont think a flow restrictor is going to be what you want.

Pat

 

[dsmpride]

Yea dude, everything is new in the cooling system...cap, t-stat, rad, fans, waterpump, etc. Plus, I am not losing coolant into the reservoir.

Kent

 

[xcelr8n]

Change the coolant to a higher water/coolant mixture, also try adding some water wetter.
In really hot days I would creep to like 218 degrees, now I'm pretty much steady at 195 constantly, and when I idle in traffic, it will occassionally creep to like 205 tops. I noticed the change as soon as I switched from a 50/50 mix of water and coolant to a ~20%/80% coolant/ water mix, with like 6 oz of water wetter thrown into the mix.

 

[dsmpride]

I have about a 75/25 water/antifreeze mixure in there and redline water wetter. Up til this point I've done everything conventional to protect against overheating. Has anyone ever heard of or used radiator flow restrictors in a dsms or any similar cars?

Kent

 

[TURFNNSURF]

Kent,

Im in a similar situation as you. I have the following new items: Water pump, Fulidyne rad, 12" spal(rad) and 10" spal(AC) both cycle normally, 180* T-stat, GReddy 1.3bar rad cap, upper and lower coolant hoses and both heater hoses were replaced. I have flushed the system numerous times and also burped it every time. I have run 80/20 water/coolant with 16oz water wetter and it still gets as hot as yours sitting in traffic with the AC on. As of now I have pulled the AC clutch fuse and run both fans with the AC button on all the time to keep the car temps near 196*.. But on a 85* or hotter day I sure do miss my AC.

Im going to watch this thread for any other possible soulutions.