over heating

[timmer]

The rad was in the front of the car,  almost laying down there are pics in the thread..  The car is in the garage now I am having the rad moved to the back in the engine bay, there is a lot of room there to put it and raise it above the engine this way it can be filled correctly and not have air pockets in it..  we are leaving the air condition stuff still up front and that way that and the rad would not be competing for cooler air.  I am hoping this is going to work ... will let you know..    with the rad back in the back there are a lot of vents to pull air from and cool the rad with a new fan 3000 cmf fan and shroud

[01Lambiero]

Timmer: Where do you fill your cooling system?  Do you have a pressurized purge container?  Where do your radiator hoses connect to the radiator?  What is the highest point in your cooling system that has coolant in it? 

[Robert]

Try a mitey mite vacuum pump, and some adaptors. Pull a vacuum to remove air in system.

[Digibeam]

Perhaps we should have just that,  a strange anomaly thread...

I know my BMW has a water line that goes to the intake it is for the idle system, while the water running past it is cold the idle is modified accordingly and as it warms up again the idle is compensated.

[cmarens]

Gotta love the anomalies , I remember once dealing with a car that the battery kept dying new or old,  ends up the upper rad hose was the culprit ...   The spring inside the hose grounded as well positive static in the fluid caused a dielectric situation that shorted the body ground.  It was all very exciting...
But at the same time these situations are kinda not fun when you have zero evidence to support general theories ..   

I had a similar issue to that one. A friend in college had an older Blazer that would not start once in a while. When I went over to pull the battery out and put mine in one night to see if it was the battery I heard a very very very faint noise. It was late at night and very quiet outside for a change (lived near college campus) which allowed the culprit to be found. There was some build-up in his steering wheel under the, you guessed it, horn contacts. The horn had almost constant current to it, but not enough to actually hear it under normal conditions. Insanity what one will see if they are around cars long enough. I could make a whole new thread of odd stuff that I have seen and I am sure in hours it would be massive with other's tales.

[cmarens]

I had a cavalier with a bad head gasket. No smoke, no oil in coolant, pressurised system to 15psi and held pressure. The head gasket was just starting to go bad. Only under the high pressure of combustion, would it leak. I saw air bubbles entering the over flow bottle at 2000 rpm.
[/quote]

There is a simple symptom that one would see if there were a leak in the system. Aside from white smoke or the FML Fairy visiting you in your dreams to tell you exactly what she did - 99% of the time there is fluid where that particular type of fluid does not belong. Simple yeah? Now, try to find it. Could be water getting into the tranny lines on an A/T which would cause drop in pressure and room for air, could be, as was previously said, foam or white-ish sludge in the oil (this can also be from short trips where the car does not get to operating temp and stay there for very long, ie. "Been working fine running around town on short trips..."), it could be a small hairline crack in the block that goes from a cylinder to a water jacket.


Here is the 1% of the time example of when this is not happening. When I was a teenager I had an '87 SS Monte Carlo. It started to have temp issues. I could not see a leak. I drained all of the fluids and did not find a drop of cross-contamination anywhere. Eventually it would start to get hot and I could see steam coming from somewhere but could not find it. After new hoses, fan, radiator, eventually I pulled it into the garage and started to tear it down for head replacement. As I was taking the carb off I hit something with my ratchet on the back side of the intake. There was a T there that fed water into the intake on that SOB. I have never ever seen that set up before in my life, nor had my stepfather who has been monkeying with cars for a long long time. As I knew that it was not needed on any other vehicle I had ever seen in my life, I put a normal straight splice in the hose, tapped the hole in the intake and put a bolt in there with lock-tite on it. I never had another problem with that car again.

Sorry for the novel. I know this really doesn't give you a straight answer to the issue, BUT I wanted to point out that while there is a usual suspect in these cases, there is the '87 Monte Carlo water into the intake for some backward reason to consider. It could be a 5 cent fix is what I am getting at. Could be something small and insignificant, I would dig around in there before pulling the wallet out for anything major. Another pair of eyes on it may help too. Keep poking and you will find it eventually.

[Digibeam]

Gotta love the anomalies , I remember once dealing with a car that the battery kept dying new or old,  ends up the upper rad hose was the culprit ...   The spring inside the hose grounded as well positive static in the fluid caused a dielectric situation that shorted the body ground.  It was all very exciting...
But at the same time these situations are kinda not fun when you have zero evidence to support general theories ..   

[Robert]

Usually he would find that interesting froth of oil mix in the rad water or an unusual amount of white smoke from the exhaust with the head gasket wouldn't he? 
Maybe more if it was a cracked head I guess.... Anyways... Carry on.   

I had a cavalier with a bad head gasket. No smoke, no oil in coolant, pressurised system to 15psi and held pressure. The head gasket was just starting to go bad. Only under the high pressure of combustion, would it leak. I saw air bubbles entering the over flow bottle at 2000 rpm.

[CCIE]

so one fan pushing the air while the other fan was pulling the air would not be a good idea?

No, you cause rarefaction  from positive and negative pulsing due to the blades being out of sync as well no shroud.... 
If you must use a front fan it should be as an inlet to pressurize a chamber in front of the radiator that is then drawn through the rad by the fan in the rear of it.

So, use a remote fan to draw cool air in from outside, pressurize the inner front trunk area, then draw that through the rad.
Not that this is about over heating but just informational about a fan sandwich = bad idea

"fan sandwich"..... Hmmmmm....... I personally prefer a turkey sandwich with feta cheese on rye bread.... with a slice of kosher extra crispy pickle.....

But Digi is correct "fan sandwich = bad idea" 

[Digibeam]

so one fan pushing the air while the other fan was pulling the air would not be a good idea?

No, you cause rarefaction  from positive and negative pulsing due to the blades being out of sync as well no shroud.... 
If you must use a front fan it should be as an inlet to pressurize a chamber in front of the radiator that is then drawn through the rad by the fan in the rear of it.

So, use a remote fan to draw cool air in from outside, pressurize the inner front trunk area, then draw that through the rad.
Not that this is about over heating but just informational about a fan sandwich = bad idea

[Thumper]

Just some thought from my experience, sounds like there's air in the lines somewhere.  I wouldn't go with dual fans, that's only prolonging the real issue.  I would make sure the thermostat is new, fan is blowing in the right direction, and there's no air pockets anywhere.  Can be pretty tricky to get them out with the front mounted rad.  If you have a blown head gasket or something else major, it will more than likely blow white smoke out the exhaust or have discolored/foamy oil.  But my guess from what was posted is air pockets. 

[timmer]

so one fan pushing the air while the other fan was pulling the air would not be a good idea?

[01Lambiero]

Unless your fan has flat blades, reversing it won't help and adding another fan on the other side of the radiator won't make the radiator cool any better as it would cause a obstruction in the air flow.  Just try a higher cfm fan and a shroud on the rear of your radiator.  Next time you have a large coolant leak, stop the car and call for help.

Jim

[timmer]

I was not having any problems with overheating at first driving around town short trips here and there,   I took it out on the highway,  doing adv 80mph  and went about 10 miles or so and that's when I noticed the heater core blew.... I drove it a little bit longer trying to get it back home, but that's when it started boiling over... Had it towed and at my mechanics he did a bypass on the heater core and we filled it up with coolent mix and took it for a short ride before it started boiling over again..  Its possible there is air in the lines and what was noticed also was the fan was blowing into the rad... it was not going with the natural air flow ,  we reversed the fan and that did not help,  we need to get the air out..  but I ordered an new fan 3000cfm  and we are getting a shroud built for it ,  we are going to put one fan on the one side blowing in with the natural air flow and the other pulling it out ,  then with the air bubbles out of the lines it might all work like it should..   heres hoping..

Tim

[01Lambiero]

Back to square one:  Blowing a heater core is NOT overheating.  The heater core will handle the 15# cooling system pressure if in good condition.  How do you know for sure that it is overheating?

Jim