May want to try a compression and leak down test. When it overheats are you loosing water on the ground. Sounds like this isn't happening. If you are loosing more fluid, pull and check your plugs. If things check good you may have a seeping problem. Go to a Caddy dealer and purchase some radiator tabs. Caddies were know for leaky gaskets and tabs did the trick.
Wtf?!?!?!?!
- Thread starter graza002
- Start date
87we410877
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Apr 5, 2005
I am losing a lot of fluid, this time I am down half of the radiator.
The bypass is a cap right on the intake manifold right where the rubber core lines go to the heater core.
I think the t-stat died, but when I installed the t-stat I did test it, and it did work.
Rad. cap is new (16 lb cap) along with a new fbody radiator.
Loosing alot of fluid? Drop the oil if theres a few gallons of water in there its a HG or intake gasket leaking. Unless the H20 is on the floor under the car, then you have other problems.
I had the same problem and this is what i drained out of my oil 5 gallons of it!!!!
Notice how its real thick and looks like frozen yogurt.
Attachments
That looks like a milk shake....When I pull the dip stick there is no indication of milky oil, same with the cap/breathers.
If thats the case I am going to be shocked, I have not been hard on the HG yet. They are new, only about 150 miles.....
If you have access to a cooling system pressure tester that may also help you out. Yeah the block tester will tell you if you have combustion gases in your coolant but thats pretty much all it will test for (ie cracked heads/block, warped heads/deck, leaking head gaskets) but using a pressure tester will let you know if you have a leak anywhere in your cooling system. If you dont have a leak then you could either have air in the system (judging by your feedback, unlikely) or you could have some other cooling issue (restriction in your radiator, t-stat faulty, cooling passages in block/heads clogged ect ect) you might even just have a bad sensor giving your a crazy temp reading. Make sure your sensor is good first of all. These are ntc temp sensors meaning higher resistance = lower temp reading. So if your sensor is shorting out somewhere (ie the wiring going to it) then you will read high temp. You might have some short where you still have some resistance lower than normal giving you a high temp reading. Unplug the wire at the temp sensor and see if your temp reading changes. Then wiggle wires around and see if that affects it also.
Compression test wont give you and diffinative results either. You could have good compression but still have a bad head gasket leaking in between the oil and coolant passages which a compression test might not catch. You could also be leaking coolant at the throttle body into the intake but not enough where you would see white smoke. You'd be surprised how much a cat could cover up things! Let us know what happens.
You could get a universal coolant test (craftsman) at sears for like $55.
Compression test wont give you and diffinative results either. You could have good compression but still have a bad head gasket leaking in between the oil and coolant passages which a compression test might not catch. You could also be leaking coolant at the throttle body into the intake but not enough where you would see white smoke. You'd be surprised how much a cat could cover up things! Let us know what happens.
You could get a universal coolant test (craftsman) at sears for like $55.
turbojimmy
Supporting Member
- Joined
- May 26, 2001
And a leakdown test. Sounds like a bad head gasket to me. I had a Thunderterd that did the same thing for years. It was my winter beater so I procrastinated on the repair. No water in the oil and it didn't smoke. It ran great, but the temps were inconsistent. Sometimes normal, sometimes it would boil over. There was no obvious bubbling in the overflow tank. It went through a gawd awful amount of coolant. Being a 3.8 Ford engine, I knew it was a head gasket. I changed the thermostat just for fun but that obviously didn't fix it. Eventually I replaced the head gaskets and that cured it, but I think overheating it so many times took its toll because by that time it had developed a deep knocking sound (which strangely also lasted for years without any ill effects).
Eventually I sold the car for $50 - it was a nice, low mileage car otherwise. I think you should do the same. Do you take PayPal?
Jim
by saying you are loosing a bunch of water do you mean all at once and are we talking ounces or gallons. If you had an air pocket, it will appear that you will have lost some fluid, but the fact being is that the volume of air was replaced by water. fill her back up and drive to see if she over heats.
I know you said you put a new radiator cap on, but I'd have the cap pressure checked. My son's 94 Cavalier beater would lose about 35% of it's coolant and then stay at that level. Ran this way for 2 years and would get hot in summer. You could tell it was low in winter cause hardly any heat. I finally tested the cap and it leaked. A new one from $5 at Autozone, filled up the antifreeze and it hasn't lost a drop in 6 months.
I have a test pipe on the car.
Ttype83 said:
Yes, "top" was ingraved on the HG.
turbojimmy said:
Yes I take paypal...no not for 50.00..lol. This is the second set of HG's. First were stock that I blew, then these RJC racing ones. Before the motor was rebuilt there was not a cooling issue, after it was rebuilt the thing has had cooling issues.
acoen said:
I am losing this amount of coolant all at once. Not over a period of time. Half the radiator is a very large air pocket.
dougie said:
This is the second cap, both 16 lb caps....
Thanks for the thoughts and ideas!!!
Still no solution to the problem.
meenkeene518
Member
- Joined
- Apr 4, 2007
Does that radiator have the coolers for the trans on the side if so it could be leacking into the trans fluid, did you check the trans fluid for water?
I didnt mention the thermostat and radiator cap because thats the first step and figured you had already looked into that. Make sure the cap is good...only way is to get a brand new one.
Another way to burp a stubborn motor, is to just jack the front end of the car up as high as you can, and lay it back down on some GOOD jackstands. Put some bricks or something behind the rear wheels and make sure the parking brake is on...I know this is obvious, but Im real paranoid about cars falling on me. Anyway, with it jacked up way high in the air, with the radiator cap off and the heater on, fire it up and let it warm up, and once the thermostat opens, do some light revs up and down to get the bubbles out.
But as for the high speed fan thing I mentioned, have you looked into that?
Another way to burp a stubborn motor, is to just jack the front end of the car up as high as you can, and lay it back down on some GOOD jackstands. Put some bricks or something behind the rear wheels and make sure the parking brake is on...I know this is obvious, but Im real paranoid about cars falling on me. Anyway, with it jacked up way high in the air, with the radiator cap off and the heater on, fire it up and let it warm up, and once the thermostat opens, do some light revs up and down to get the bubbles out.
But as for the high speed fan thing I mentioned, have you looked into that?
nordy racer
Active Member
- Joined
- Aug 2, 2004
crack head, block or blown HG.. sorry to tell you Andrew
Everything has been moved to external, Its the F-Body rad.
VadersV6 said:
I have a new cap, and the t-stat was tested. I have not looked at the fan relay yet. I have been a little busy with work. I am actually going to dig into the car in about 20 min from now.
turbojimmy
Supporting Member
- Joined
- May 26, 2001
Well, I had to try.
My car ran hotter after the rebuild, too, but not in the manner you describe. I attributed it to the .040 overbore. With dual fans and a re-core radiator it stays cool. You've got something else going on there.
Jim
chopped39
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Aug 30, 2004
I would pressure test car with spark plugs out . then disable ignition and fuel pump.then crank over slowly and see if any coolant comes out. I use a tool called an air lift on every coolant system i work on. it pulls system into a vacuum . if system does not hold vacuum there is a leak.this tool removes all air pockets. i would also do a cumbustion leak test in coolant system . that picks up exhaust gases in coolant system. were the block and heads checked for straightness? how old is water pump? make sure there is flow. I have seen water pump impellers rot away. I would have to say head gasket is cause. but i would do the above tests first. good luck
My mom used to have this 95 cadillac that was a beautiful car. In excellent condition. Only problem was that it was overheating. It started making alot of noise and after looking at it, I told my mom I thought the cam was going flat. I told her to take it to the shop immediately before it got worse. One of her boyfriends at the time, lol, always convinced her that he knew about cars, and 99% of the advise was utter nonsense, but she would believe it all...but not from her son who's been at this his whole life...anyway, this asshat told her that the engine was overheating because it has an aluminum block and theres nothing she could do...never mind the fact that aluminum is WAY more thermally conductive than iron, So she kept driving it and overheating it, and the engine was toast within another 500 miles. She had it towed to her dads (my grandfather) shop, and they took a look at it. Verdict? Cam went flat which was contributing to the overheating, and the engine finally seized.
Moral of the story...second guess everything you hear. Take any one persons advise, without listening to other suggestions and you'll be in trouble.
I have a .040 overbore by the way, and every stint with overheating I had, was either the radiator sucked, I had stop leak in the system (radiator stop leak formulas increase the boundary layer on the surface of the metal, to the point that little heat transfer can happen..but I used it cause I was desperate to get home one day...using more water than antifreeze will reduce the boundary layer, allowing better cooling...its why water wetter works..thins the boundary layer (turbulence across the surface) or the high speed/low speed fan circuits werent working at full power because of the gorilla snot in all the pins and sockets on the relays, or I had an air pocket a couple times that needed to be burped. Now I cruise around at 160 with my 100 dollar autozone f-body radiator, and my 20 year old relays and 20 year old, single factory fan and no oil cooler..I just put a bypass hose on it.
jack the car up really high in the fron, bring the motor up to operating temp with the radiator cap off, and lightly rev the engine with your hand on the TB...the bubbles should pop out.....air rises to the top, and jacking the car up will make the fill hole on the radiator, the highest point in the system.
Water pump is 1 week old, and its a new one, not a reman. It flows just fine. I noticed that with the cap off.
I found an area on the manifold that was leaking, fixed it and the coolant still dropped.
I went out and bought a block test kit....the result was not good. The blue die went to yellow meaning there was compression loss/gass in the coolant...so the problem has been narrowed down to a cracked block, cracked heads or a head gasket. I have never retq the new gaskets so I am hoping thats it!!! If not, well my money is really going to be gone...:frown:
