Overheated 2.5L Mazda

You may get lucky.

A car my parents had blew a radiator hose and overheated. After refilling the radiator we had coolent coming out the tailpipe.

Get the water pump fixed !

get it fixed then go from their?

if you knew it was leaking you should have fixed it then ---know it may cost you mega bucks if it's major motor problems

thanks for keeping the mechanics busy

Aluminum head(s)? Good luck. Aluminum block? Start praying.

Hopefully the motor is not seized. Try turning it over by hand as a preliminary assessment. If is not seized, you can run it for just long enough to assess its condition even with the bad water pump, once it has been sitting and is cold. While it is running, look for steam out the tailpipe, bubbles in the radiator, oil in the radiator, milky oil, external oil leaks from HG area, etc. After running it, shut it down and let it sit. Remove the spark plugs and check for water in the cylinders. If you don't detect any problems up to this point, it may be worth repairing, but you still may have a gasket failure in your future.

By the way, it is not a good idea to run a car with a leaking cooling system, even if the leak is minor. If it is leaking externally, it is not cooling effectively, because the coolant's density is decreased as it wants to boil.

Here's a problem. You don't think a quart every two days could cause overheating?

Here's a problem. You have been driving with an inoperative temp gauge?

Here's a problem. At this point metal transfer has probably occured between the pistons and cylinder walls, not to mention cylinder warpage and extreme heat stress to other vital components such as crank, bearings, head mating surfaces, and valve guides.

The entire block could be esentially wasted at this point and the head gaskets could still hold coolant. Head gaskets don't cause an engine to seize!

If it starts and runs and doesn't belch oil out the tail pipe and into the air cleaner housing, then you may have a chance at salvaging the engine. If this is the case, you may want to consider the following: Change the oil and filter, keep a sample of the old oil, run the engine again for about 15 minutes (keeping radiator topped off) then stop engine and drain a sample of the "clean oil" and send both samples to be tested. If the "clean" sample shows a extrordinary amount of aluminum, lead, tin, and steel then you will probably want to junk the engine. OTOH, if both samples are relatively metal free given their respective time spent in the engine, then you are *probably* OK and should proceed with the waterpump and radiator replacement. And then fix the temp gauge problem. It's probably just a loose wire or broken terminal at the sender.

Toyota MDT in MO

Re: Oil sample. Good idea. I will do just that.

I put water in the engine, started it, did not hear any noises nor did I see any white smoke come out of the tail pipe. I still have hope I haven't done damage to it.

Re: Temp. sensor, I replaced it twice - and it had it explode on me twice as soon as the vehicle is turned on. Explode literally, where it is torn in half. I don't know what can cause this. Some electrical issue, but how to troubleshoot?

If you can light a standard test light by touching it to the sending unit connector terminal with the key on, then there is a problem in the instrument cluster or temp gauge. I'm just guessing here that the sender thermister is seeing a full 12 volts and burning up. There is measurable voltage in the sender circuit if you use a high impedence voltmeter, but it of extremely low current capacity. Perhaps full B+ power is being shorted to that wire; again, think instrument cluster :)

Toyota MDT in MO