The other day I went to get a new battery for my car, and on the way it overheated.
I pulled the 195deg thermostat out and replaced it with a 192deg, but it's still overheating. When I parked it, I heard a sort-of "gurgling" sound coming from where the thermostat is, and the upper hose is easy to squeeze. It also smoked for a little bit after parking, and the coolant smell was overwhelming.
I had the radiator flushed and refilled, and that hasn't helped.
I barely got my car home before it got too hot to drive today, but I *NEED* this car for work, and my wife is getting a little pissed about me taking her car more than a couple times.
Well the bad news is that after overheating it like this a few times you probably have bigger problems than the original cooling problem. Modern engines can not tolerate being overheated like the old 60's iron could.
The problem could be many things: Fan(s) not working properly Clogged radiator (unlikely in a sudden onset case like this) Collapsing hoses Failed water pump blown head gasket
When the light comes on or the gauge goes to H pull over, turn the heat on high and rev the engine a little bit. If the temp doesn't start coming right down shut the engine off and have it towed to a place where it can be repaired or you can repair it. Severely overheating an engine will warp the head, cause the head gasket to blow, play hell on the bearings and cause the pistons to scuff the heck out of the bores.
Is coolant level in the radiator dropping? If it isn't, then you don't have a leak, and it's probably the cooling fan like has been posted.
If it is dropping (and it probably is if you can smell coolant) then check the end of the air conditioning condensate drain on the underside of the car - if you see coolant coming out of there or smell it there, then you have a leaking heater core.
If you have coolant smell coming out of the tailpipe then the head gasket is leaking.
It's hard even with a concrete driveway to see coolant leaks. What happens is you get a small hole, when the cooling system isn't running the coolant just drips out a drop an hour or so, then when it gets hot the pressure in the system opens the hole up and the coolant squirts out at far higher volume.
Did you put a new rad cap on it?
Fill it with coolant, and if you have jackstands (nice big fat ones) jack the front of the car up, start it and run until it's nice and hot, then turn on the heater full blast in the car and sniff for coolant smell, if you smell it coming out of the air vents in the car, the heater core is leaking.
Then, shut down and immediately get under the car and listen for hissing, and coolant dripping. Coolant can run quite a ways down and if the leak is in some inconvenient place (like the underside of the heater bypass hose that is invisible from the top and the bottom of the engine) you may have a devil of a time figuring out exactly where the coolant is coming out from.
Quite often water pump bleed holes are obscured when the pump is on the vehicle, so don't rule out the water pump if you see coolant coming out near it.
If you can't find it in the engine compartment or passenger compartment then a head gasket leak is the only other possibility. But I would bet it's not that, since you already posted that you got a strong coolant smell.
Needless to say, running an engine for a long period of time with that much coolant missing is going to destroy it.
I popped off the radiator cap, and got the car running nice and warm...
When I did, coolant started pouring out from somewhere I can't see. From the bottom of the car, it looks to be from between the fender and the oil pan...
Could this be the heater core?
Is it safe to bypass it? We're not going to have much need for a heater during July in Texas...
Be careful doing that - hot coolant expands and if there's no large leaks it will come spewing out the radiator. You should never run it without a rad cap.
Does it stink like coolant inside the passenger compartment?
Usually bad heater cores will pee all over the inside of the car, leaving you with a carpet full of stinking coolant that you have to shampoo out of there. You can choose to do this before you replace the heater core, in which case when you pull the core out more residual coolant will come pouring out onto the carpet, and you have to shampoo it again - or you can do it after you replace the core in which case your going to be lying in the coolant while you undo the dash to get the core out.
That may be so, but if the core is bad you most definitely are going to smell coolant with the heater or defroster on, since it's blowing air over the bad core then into the passenger compartment. If you don't smell it then your probably fine with the heater. You could have a crack in a hose going to the heater. Hoses often crack first at stress points, such as where the hose is clamped to a tube.
Another kind of rule of thumb is that if you have coolant just hissing or dripping out, it's probably a hole or crack in some metal coolant line. If you have coolant gushing out it's probably a crack in a flexible line like a hose. When hoses crack the crack bursts open like a balloon popping and usually gets a lot larger, a lot quicker. There are exceptions of course to this.
The water pump was, in fact, bad. I had it replaced and all is well!
I had them replace the timing chain as well. Since I only have around
130,000 miles, it wasn't QUITE time to do it. But, better to do it while it's all apart, instead of paying for double the work.
They said that the water pipe coming from the block looks better than most of the cars that come through. Could that be because I use distilled water in my coolant?
if you live in an area that has excessively hard water then yes, using distilled water is a good idea. Also, if you have a water softener you definitely want to do this since water softners work by replacing the minerals with sodium (that is why you have to keep dumping rock salt into them) which is not something that you want to put into your coolant.
Also, coolant has anti-rust additives, and if you don't change it every couple of years, those additives get used up. The coolant may look OK and still test out good with a hydrometer, but not have any rust-preventatives left in it.
Could be as distilled water is what you are supposed to mix with the coolant. Have you changed your coolant and flushed the cooling system per the maintenance schedule in your OM?
Then I'm not surprised at all that the coolant passages are pretty clean. I maintain my 1996 GV much the same and its still on its original radiator, heater core, etc. with 169,000 miles on it and when ever I change the hoses the internals still look pretty good.
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