Can You Help Me Stop Overheating?!! Options

[JohnnyWadd]

Hey, Goat... now that you mention it, there was a pretty bad squeal when I first started the car. I thought it was the power steering belt, though. When I got to the car, the belt was off. I put it back on and tightened it, though I only used my hands to tighten the belt.

With that, I'm going to guess that pump is bad.

She wants $450 to sell the car. Should I buy it, put on a pump and resell it? It's in pretty good shape. Or, would the risk of it having potentially been overheated be too much?

Let me know what you guys think.
Jon

[Taxiwardance]

If shes selling the car for 450 and nobody wants to mess with it give me a ring at 309-224-8777 if your around peoria. I will come pick it up

[BudmannG]

She lives close to Nevada Taxi.

[Taxiwardance]

hmmmmm........... yeah lets scratch that last comment then.

[JohnnyWadd]

Huh?! I'm confused!!

[natedogg]

I just read this stuff again... man, I feel like an idiot!!!

And, you guys jumped me for it. Good job!! I'm proud of you.

I actually laughed while reading it.

Anyway, let me say again: I was wrong in my recollection!! You guys are right, and I did know that the timing belt doesn't actually run the water pump. It's just that you have to remove the timing belt to get at the pump. I've done the job twice on my own car, it's just that it's been so damned long since I'd done any major mechanical work on a 1g DSM, my memory escaped me.

Sorry guys. I feel like I wasted your time.

I'll try to do better in the future.

Jon

No problem, Jon. Glad we got her all straightened out.

[JohnnyWadd]

Okay, I thought I'd update you guys a little. I decided to just go ahead and buy this car from the girl who owned it. She only wanted $450, and I figured that even if I can't make it stop overheating, I can always part it out and get my money back. Probably more, actually. Didn't do a whole lot to her yet. I went to a couple of concerts out of town this weekend, so that absorbed most of my weekend. It was worth every minute, though. Sevendust Rocks!!!

Anyway, I went out to play with her a little bit today. Didn't get a chance to do too much, but I did tinker around a fair amount. The first thing I did was to take off both the PS and the Alt belts so that I could play with the water pump pulley to see if the bearing was bad or the shaft was messed up. It didn't feel like anything was wrong to me. Spins freely, makes no noise, and has no play. So, I'm guessing the bearing is okay. I didn't take the timing cover off to inspect the weephole, but there's no evidence of leakage anywhere below, so I'm guessing the seal is okay as well. This leads me to believe that the water pump is okay.

Next thing I did was to pull out the dipstick to see what color the oil was. It didn't appear to be a milkshake to me. In fact, it was quite black. Could use a changing. It was about a quart too full, so that's a problem. I also started her up to check for white smoke from the exhaust pipe. Didn't see any of that. So, I'm feeling that she's doesn't have a warped head or bad head gasket.

My next step was to check the coolant level. I opened the filler cap and couldn't see any coolant at all. I had an empty two liter soda bottle that I filled with water in order to fill up the system. I was going to use Anti-freeze, but I ultimately decided not to, considering that I might have to dump it all really soon if I find out the the water pump or thermostat is in fact defective. I'll definitely change that before winter hits no matter what I figure out. It took almost 2/3 of the bottle to fill it up, but that was before I drove her to get out the air pockets. Oh, and I also forgot to check the level of the overflow tank.

The next thing I did was start her up. I let her idle for quite some time (maybe 20 minutes), and the needle stayed right where it was supposed to be: pointed pretty much straight up to 12 o'clock. I didn't notice at this time whether or not the fan was cycling on and off. However, since it wasn't running anywhere near hot, I was beginning to think that maybe the only problem was that the coolant was low.

So, I decided to take her for a spin around town to see what happens then. That's when trouble started to come into paradise. I didn't take her on the highway at all. In fact, I probably didn't get much over 35 mph. She started to get hot, though. I don't think I'd driven further than a mile and the needle was starting to approach redline. When it got close, I turned onto a side street and shut her down with the intention of starting and stopping the engine to coast home. I shut her down the first time and coasted a ways. Then, I restarted her, and was able to make it all the way back home without having to kill her again. She was starting to warm up, though.

When I got back to the house, I decided to let her idle to see what she'd do. She cooled back down to normal operating temp (12 o'clock) and stayed there the whole time she was idling. I let her idle for probably another 10 minutes. I also noticed that the fan was cycling on and off as it was supposed to. After a while, I decided to take her for a spin again. Once again, it didn't take long for the needle to approach redline. This time, when I turned onto the sidestreet, instead of shutting her down, I pulled over to let her idle. Once again, she cooled down to normal operating temperature and stayed there. It took about 10 more minutes for her to cool down.

When I got back, I shut her down long enough for her to cool, then opened the radiator cap again. The coolant level was down again, but it didn't take much to fill her back up. I also decided to check the overflow tank. It was pretty close to empty, so I filled it up as well. All told, it took about 1 1/8 2-liter bottles of water to fill up the cooling system. For you non-metric types, that's just a shade over half a gallon of water.

So, what do you think? Since it cooled down to normal operating temperature every time I let her idle, I really don't think that the water pump or the thermostat are bad. I also think that the coolant switch for the fan is okay, since the fan was running. But, the fact that it would heat up when I'd start driving puzzles me. Do you guys have any idea as to what you think would cause this? Any suggestions you could give would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for reading. I appreciate all of your guys' time.
Jon

[JohnnyWadd]

Do you guys think a leaky radiator cap would cause it to run hot? I know people often neglect that part of the cooling system.

Jon

[JohnnyWadd]

All right, guys... I think this car might have much bigger problems, and maybe I shouldn't have dropped $450 on her. I've owned it for two days, and already thinking I should kick myself in the ass for squandering my cash.

First off, I decided to pull the thermostat out of her to see if I could keep her cool while running down the road. And, before you ask, no I wasn't planning on leaving it that way. I know it's not good for the car to run it without a thermostat. Anyway, the first thing I noticed is that there was about 1/8 inch of gunk on the thermostat all the way around the opening. I didn't think it was motor oil, but to be sure I ran down to a local radiator shop to ask them what they thought it was. The guy told me what I thought he would. He told me that he thought it was stop-leak. Like Bar's or something similar. Evidently, this thing started leaking, and rather than fix the problem correctly, someone threw a bunch of stop-leak in the cooling system.

So, this presence of gunk leads me to believe that the inside of the radiator looks the same.

Anyway, after I took out the thermostat, I decided to take her for a drive and see if she ran hot. At first, she did okay. It ran for a couple of miles (city driving) at normal operating temperature. By that, I mean that without a thermostat, it ran at the temperature it normally runs at with a thermostat, not less, as it should have if the thermostat were the problem. I let her idle while talking to the radiator guy. It still did fine. Then, when I started coming back home, it started getting way worse. The guage pointed to the start of the red line, so I shut her down. I decided to limp her home by starting her, getting her up to the speed limit, then shutting her down, taking her out of gear, and coasting down the side streets. I made it home this way without overheating her.

So, anyway, there's no water in the oil pan, and no oil in the cooling system. However, the radiator guy told me that what these things do when the head gasket goes bad is leak between the combustion chamber and the coolant system. So, the compression increases the pressure in the cooling system, forcing coolant out (usually by creating new leaks in the cooling system). The only upside is that I can find no evidence whatsoever of cooling system leaks. Not surprising, considering that there's an eighth of an inch of stop-leak in there.

So, let me give you my logic, now. If you guys see a fault, point it out. If you have another idea, shout it out. If you agree, give me some words of encouragement. I'm thinking one of two things: bad head gasket; or so much stop-leak inside the radiator that neither the fans nor the air coming in at driving speeds can begin to cool the water. Since there is no coolant/oil exchange between the oil and cooling ports, I'm thinking that with a compression test, I'll be able to tell if the pressure is leaking back into the cooling system. Also, if I did a compression test with the radiator cap off, wouldn't I see bubbles shooting up through the water at the filler hole? Pressure will release at the point of least resistance. If I have the cap off, that will definitely be the point of least resistance.

If I find no head gasket woes, I would think that I can assume that the stop-leak is the culprit. Is there anything that I can run through there to get rid of all that shit? I don't think that just flushing it will drive that stuff out. If not, I'll just replace the radiator and see if that helps it run cooler. No, not with a new one. I'm not going to take that big of a chance.

One more thing of note. When under load, there's a bit of a rattle coming out from under the hood. Can't tell where it's coming from. It doesn't do it when I rev the engine. Only when under load. Not sure what it is. It's not really a knock. Not loud enough. Like I said, it's a bit of a rattle. You know, it almost sounds similar to the rattle a diesel engine makes when operating normally, though not near as loud. What do you guys make of that?

Thanks again for your help, fellas. I appreciate anything you can give me.
Jon

P.S. I hate all forms of stop-leak. They're evil. They should be eliminated to force people to actually fix problems that arise rather than just putting a band-aid on something that needs a tourniquet. I think that they were invented by and for people that want to mask a problem before they rip off the next owner of their car.

[turbohcar]

Get a compression test done on it. If that yields no real results (as mine showed 130psi across the board but it was a freshly rebuilt motor) then it's still not safe to say that the headgasket is not the problem. The only way I fixed mine was to throw a barrage of parts at it and pray to God that it fixes it. The 160* thermostat was finally what fixed it for me after having two different thermostats in it before. I did a headgasket, ARP headstuds, milled head, all new hoses, brand new radiator, fans running full time, AC eliminated, and new water pump and it still ran hot. I finally put the 160 stat in it and it runs at a constant 172*.

[JohnnyWadd]

This overheating job is going to take a backseat for a few days. The holiday will delay me some, but I'm going to spend most of the weekend putting my stolen car back together. Once I'm done with that, I'll resume the task.

Thanks for all your input. I'll let you know what's up once I get back at this one.

Jon

[90GSX]

when was the timing belt tensioner last changed? I noticed you said it sounded like a diesel engine, and thats what mine sorta sounded just before my tensioner went bad on me. Your tensioner can make your timing belt slip a tooth or more and make it sound like that too. Ive already had mine slip on me out of the blue by a tooth and it would actually run ok, just wouldnt build boost and sounded like a diesel engine. If your timing starts to go off, cant that also make you overheat?

Just another theory to add since you said it was making that noise.

Can stopleak also clog up water passeges in the motor? Might be a flow problem causing it too

[JohnnyWadd]

All right, I know it's been a while, but I was finally able to play around with this thing again. I took it to my buddy's mechanic shop, and it didn't take long for us to determine that the head gasket is shot. Problem is, I'm moving back to San Diego next week to return to grad school, so there's no way that I'll be able to work on it. So, I think I'm just going to get rid of it and try and get my $450 back.

How would you guys recommend that I go about this? Is eBay a good idea for a car that doesn't run (at least not correctly)? Or should I stick with the local papers? The car itself is located in Lincoln, Nebraska. If you know anyone close who's interested in the car, let me know. It's a 1992 Talon Non-Turbo 2.0 Liter. The car is quite decent. Pretty nice shape and not all that high of mileage. If someone has the time to put a little TLC into it, it'll probably work out nicely for them. I don't have the time and I already have a DSM that I'm in love with, so this car is expendable to me. If you know anyone who wants it, let me know. Have them drop me a line at jhieb1@hotmail.com or call me at (402) 770-1118.

Thanks
Jon

[The Iron Goat]

Step one would be posting this up on the Exchange. Lots of cheap DSMs to be had lately. Ebay may prove fruitless, but if you're just trying to unload it, I'd use all available means.