1st Night Out: Terrible! Options

[SCCA Stang]

All you have to do to burp the system is:
Fill with anti freeze, Leave cap off, Let the car run and you watch the air come out of the top. You will know a burp when you see one, And don't worry if you lose some anti freeze. It's just pushing the air through the system before the thermostate opens.
It will take you a good 15-20 minutes to do this. So don't get in a hurry.

where did we get this guy, he knows just about everything!!!

good to have you aboard, looks like you will be a valuable asset to the boards

Personally, I think Autozone and Advance are identical twins but that may just be my opinion.

I am not trying to get this thread off topic, but the two companies, get the majority of the big parts from completely different vendors and the parts are different brands. I have just had better luck personally with the parts from advance.... Advance also has longer warranties on some stuff too.

ok, thread hyjacked enough, back to the topic at hand.

[turbohcar]

Radiator is an aluminum 2G unit rigged up to work on my car. It's pretty new and in good shape. The AC Condensor on the other hand, is 145k miles old and I'd like to just take it out all together because I'm not using the A/C anyway.

BTW, I drove it to work this morning. It kept going from 96.8*C back down to 95*C and cycling.

[The Iron Goat]

Perhaps the radiator could use a good flushing? Your temps are stable, but mabye a tad on the warm side. Nothing to be concerned about, but if it hasn't been done recently, I'd go ahead and get the system flushed again.

[turbohcar]

Most definitely the headgasket now. I drove it home last night and then to work this morning. I took the radiator cap off and the coolant was a bit low....lower than it should be to cool an engine efficiently. So I filled her back up and no more cycling temperature! WOO HOO! Headgasket and ARP's here I come.

[turbohcar]

Well, believe it or not, I've got MORE bad news for you boys. Drove it to work yesterday and for some reason, the logger wasn't working. At first it wouldn't show any values, like it wasn't connecting. Then, it showed some values but they weren't correct. Like coolant temp would jump from -72*C to 59*C and it was 50*F outside. All the values were doing it, not just coolant temp. So, I checked all the connections, they were all correct. After that, I just shut it off, there was no point in it. Got to work, checked the coolant, it was a bit low. Filled it up, ran all my errands in town and parked it. After work I went to meet my friend that was going to follow me to Robs and I noticed it was a bit low before we left so, I filled it up again. As a precaution, I bought a 2 Liter of Dr. Pepper, drank some, and poured the rest out to be used as a water container just in case along with an empty Gatorade bottle. We headed out on I74 from the north side of Bloomington off of Veterans and headed towards Goodfield. Everything was fine until 6.5 miles from Goodfield. It started to overheat quite a bit. Not as bad as it had the first time but enough that I knew I had to pull over. I carefully (Don't try this one at home kids!) removed the radiator cap with a rag covering it to prevent any splash. I turned it to the first click and it let off a huge cloud of steam, second click blew the radiator cap into the ditch and spit water all over the front of the car. There was little to no water in the car. In fact, it took the entire 2.5 Liters I had in the car and that didn't even fill it up. At this point, I called Rob. He was EXTREMELY nice and drove out to pick us up in his pick'emup truck. We then drove the entire 20-30 miles back to my house to pick up the two wheel dolly. Then it was all the way back to the car, helping to disconnect the main driveshaft, hang it up with a bungee cord and push it onto the dolly and strap it down. Needless to say, he went wayyy out of his way to help even though his wife wasn't really happy about it. Tom and I followed Rob to the gas station at Goodfield so that I could fill up his truck and check the straps again. That's when we noticed the front bumper on the Talon. Evidently, the car sits low enough to scrape on the sides of the dolly's ramps. In fact, there was evidence of the three or four times we tried to push it up the ramps. So now there's three gashes in the bumper on either side.

So now my car's broke, the front bumper is torn off, my back hurts from laying on the asphalt next to semi-tractor trailers doing 65mph three feet from my head, I've got a deep cut on my right finger and I swallowed my left contact last night.

To try to make things better, Tom and I drove to Peoria to find a straight patch of asphalt and someone to drive next to us. We drove through campus, through Pekin, Creve Cour, all over Peoria and there was nothing to be found except for a Mustang GT that just liked the to hear the sound of his own exhaust. Not only that, but while in Pekin near the waterfront, he ran over someting. That something happened to be a small crowbar. When he went over it the bar kicked up against the side of the car on the drivers door. We got out and inspected it a bit only finding a small chip out of the top coat of paint, no big deal. Upon further inspection this morning, there's a 2inch long gash about a 1/4 inch deep just under his drivers side mirror. It wouldn't be as bad if he wasn't driving his (darn near mint condition) 86 Buick Regal T-Type, which is the same as a Grand National.

Last night sucked. I guess it can only get better.

[BudmannG]

Man I'm sorry to here about your luck. Mine is about the same as it goes with DSMs. I just have a mysterious idle surge when cold start.
I'm to here about your friends car, I love those cars too. I used to have an 83 Buick Regal, Dropped a 455 Olds Rocket in it. Man that thing would scream. And I had another 83 Buick Regal that I dropped a small block Chevy in. I have to say the small block ran alot better off the line.
Well I sure hope you get the problem fixed and are able to run again. And I hope your buddy will fix his problem before it ruins that door. Good luck to both of you.

[turbohcar]

Thanks Budmann. I'm more concerned with his car I think. Mine has always been this way, so I'm used to it. Bad luck after bad luck. His car was painted about three years ago and like I said, could easily win a car show. Not only that but up until about two weeks ago it was his daily driver.

[turbohcar]

Here's Rob's diagnosis. What do you guys think?

got the head off, no obvious signs of the gasket being bad. the plugs had a little white residue on them, and the exhaust ports looked kinda wet. Compression was 130-135 across the board. not real good, but the motor isn't broke in from the sound of things. was the water pump new or used? might look into putting one of those on it while we have it apart. I can look at it better after I get the timing cover off.


I'm going to replace the water pump, take the AC condensor out, try and find a good 1G radiator to put in it, new headgasket, deck the head, ARP head studs. It's already got the new 180*F stat in it and new radiator cap.

[The Iron Goat]

Man, that SUCKS, bro. I feel for you with this. It's an interesting problem, and it seems to be avoiding detection somehow. A leak would be nearly impossible to identify after spewing coolant all over the engine like it did. And Rob's saying there's nothing goign on with the headgasket....

I'm assuming the obvious cloud of white smoke hasn't been present. Do you smell coolant while driving? Any leaks in your resevoir? Perhaps a deviant leak at the heater core hoses or at the throttle body. I'm just spitballing here, trying to get gears turning in your heads. Hope you guys get it figured out.

[turbohcar]

Well, I couldn't identify a leak before the coolant went spewing and no, there wasn't the tell-tale white smoke cloud coming from the tailpipe. I didn't see any leaks in the resivoir either. The only thing identifiable is the missing coolant and the fact that on the way to Peoria, the friend I had following me said that my car was spitting water all over his windshield. I've been putting straight water in it since I found out it was loosing coolant simply because of the availability of it.

[black92_tsi_awd]

Did you check the heater hoses between the engine and the firwall? I had one split in an old Cavalier I had. Couldn't find the leak by looking at it. It sprayed water everywhere. I had to actually lay under the car with it running to find the spray..not a fun diagnosis!!

[90GSX]

Did you check the heater hoses between the engine and the firwall? I had one split in an old Cavalier I had. Couldn't find the leak by looking at it. It sprayed water everywhere. I had to actually lay under the car with it running to find the spray..not a fun diagnosis!!

Ive had this happen to me once already, only mine would start to overheat at idle, but once i was moving it cooled back off. But when i raised the hood after shutting the car off, it was an obvious hissing noise and a steamfest under the hood.

[turbohcar]

Well, I would think that this is a problem but, there are no visible puddles, leaks, or otherwise on the ground or engine bay while it was running. Good thought though.

[badbu68]

I had the same problem a while back, overheating, loss of coolant, no visable leaks so I thought headgasket. Well turned out that the underside of my radiator hose was cracked where the clamp was before the block. The coolant would just run on the block and burn off, but I didn't see any smoke.

[turbohcar]

Interesting point badbu, I'll make sure we check that one for sure.

[The Iron Goat]

Recalling what Rob discovered inside the engine -white plugs and moisture in the exhaust section- i began to wonder something.

Say the car had an external leak in whateverthehell it was. This causes the loss of fluid and overheating, but could the resulting steam and moisture also be drawn into the intake in a large enough amount to result in the condition that Rob came across?

Basically, the question is: does the engine HAVE to have an internal leak to cause the fouled plugs and moisture in the exhaust section? Just food for thought.

[turbohcar]

GRRRRrrrrrrr.....the problems continue. Well, Rob was gracious enough to help me get the car running late last night. Unfortunately, I'm afraid things still aren't totally fixed. It runs good, drives good, but the HVAC does not work at all and the fans aren't kicking on when it gets hot. Not only that but it does get a bit hot still. It will stay straight up and down for a bit, then get almost halfway between hot and normal, then the thermostat opens and it cools back down to normal. It does this every 30 seconds which to me is a bit abnormal. If it were the middle of the day on a 90*+ day then no, I wouldn't worry about it but it was about 40* out last night and it was still doing it. Since the fans won't kick on themselves I've got the vent turned up with the A/C button on so that they will both run full time. I've tried turning them off and it still makes no difference to the car. It runs good, just not like it should.

[turbohcar]

BTW, I put a new aftermarket Modine radiator with metal end tanks, a new water pump, new radiator and heater core hoses, new 180* thermostat, new timing belt tensioner, new harmonic dampener, no A/C, vaccum lines eliminated, black canister eliminated, 4-layer Mitsu headgasket, ARP headstuds........etc etc etc. While trying to burp it last night the car kept wanting to overflow over top the thermostat housing. It wasn't a "burp" it was more like a steady flow like if the thermostat was letting just a little bit of water out at a time. The overflow bottle was not taking any of the extra into the tank and coolant kept overflowing over the housing so we just put the cap back on. If anybody has any advice, post it up please.

[turbohcar]

And my logger still won't connect to the ECU!

[BudmannG]

I got an extra one we can use this weekend if you got time to go to Nates. I will have it with me just in case you come. I will bring an extra logger also. try hitting the reset button on the back, and then reinstall the software. But make sure you get mmcd out before you reset, ok.