Don't need help anymore the problem is solved!

kat · Post by **kat** » May 31st, 2005, 12:44 pm

Okay on friday my dad had my car, and he let it idle for about 5 minutes outside his place too see if the idle had settled down, and all of a sudden he looks over and the car is steaming, and all the coolant is on the ground, the pipe over by the over flow had popped off. So that was fine we (wolfe, my dad, brad and I) put our heads together and checked everything we thought it could be. Took out the thermostat, put the one from the K8 in it, and tested the one from the ZE, both seemed to work fine. Flushed the lines, then filled it back up got all of the air out of the lines and took it for a drive, seemed to work fine.
So we packed up and took off to halifax, then saturday went to the valley, got to the valley, went through the car wash, I was sitting and waiting for brad and lisa to finish at the car wash, car was idling, i looked down and guess what steam coming out from under my hood, gauge up past the H. Got out popped the hood, and antifreeze was coming out of the over flow....let the engine cool, and then went over to the show.
We realized the fan wasn't cutting in, so the boys hooks it up direct to the battery to test it. Worked fine. Filled it back up with coolant, and took off, back to halifax.
Today AGAIN we pulled over to the side for about 3 minutes, too off again, gauge up close to the H and we lost more coolant. So we pulled
over, filled it with water and drove home fine. We have kept the fan hooked direct to the battery since yesterday and it's still doing it.

Anyone have any ideas?
I'm thinking that maybe both thermostat aren't working right but i don't know for sure.

I'm open to ideas and what to check.
I'm just hoping it's not the head gasket.

In the past 5 days i've changed the rad cap, flushed the system a number of times and let the air out.

Hooked the fan up direct to the battery, and it still over heated even with the fan hooked up direct. Going to check and see if the fan is turning the wrong way.

Check the thermostat, it is NOT the thermostat for sure.

Does anyone know anything else we can check to rule out head gasket or any other ideas of what it may be?
Oh yeah checked the oil, still no water, no steam in the exhaust, and no build up on the spark plugs. Going to do a compression test and a pressure test as soon as we get the testers.

Nd4SpdSe · Post by **Nd4SpdSe** » May 31st, 2005, 1:31 pm

[Ignore if you want, i missed the part where you hooked the fan up permanently] You check the ran fan wiring itself? I just went through that myself a few weeks back, I was in traffic and noticed the temperature guage higher than normal and kept going up. An easy remedy is to crank the heat to the max (with the fan setting on), this will open up the thermostat letting colder air in (one basic way to make sure that it isn't your thermostat), it allowed me to use the car like that for almost 2 weeks without seeing the temperature rise, but I would make sure I wouldn't leave the car idle for a few minutes, and kept my eyes glue to the temp guage when stopped at lights.

ALthough myself, not onle was the rad fan seized, but i had a bad ground on the harness side of the connector, so after replacing it, it kicked in once, and didnt kick in again until further investigation, so I wired us a second ground from the wiring from the fan to the chassis as a fix.[/ignore]

It could also be the water pump?

BTW, it's never a good idea to let the temp guage get into the red zone, never mind beyond the H mark, you'll definitely damage the engine/blow seals. Personally, I think you need to monitor your guages a little more, your probably will now after this, but it takes a while for the temperature to reach that point (with the temp setting on cold), about 5 minutes before you start to see an increase, never alone it over heating. Myself, I also had an incident when I had my k8, my waterpump was leaking and i didn't know (park on a gravel parking lot doesn't help) and i noticed my temperature started to go up one day at a stop light, and I was thinking if i started to drive it would go back down, which it did, for only a few seconds, until it started to go back up once i got to speed at about 80km/h it started to go back up again, it hit just below the red part when i decided that was too much and pulled over and shut the car down.

XxantwawnxX · Post by **XxantwawnxX** » May 31st, 2005, 1:47 pm

Nd4SpdSe wrote: An easy remedy is to crank the heat to the max (with the fan setting on), this will open up the thermostat letting colder air in (one basic way to make sure that it isn't your thermostat),
own.

i thought useing your heater only opened th eheater control valve lettting coolant into the heatercore. that will hope cool of th emotor a lil bit considering the colants looseing heat int he transfer when it goes in the core.\

unless our cars work diff...or do our cars have colant running i the core at all times..and the heater setting just opens a blenddoor and turns on a fan.

Nd4SpdSe · Post by **Nd4SpdSe** » May 31st, 2005, 2:13 pm

Ya, it's always passing though the core, which sucks in the summer cause I don't have A/C, but fortunately god invented windows, and all was good.

kat · Post by **kat** » May 31st, 2005, 2:44 pm

I always watch my temp gauge, I looked down long enough to pick up my phone and when i looked back up is was up past the H.

It is NOT the thermostat. That is for sure 100%.

It's really weird how it's acting.
We thought it may be the water pump but it's looking more like the head gasket now...which pisses me off cause i have only drove with this engine for a month now. And i've only put less than 2000kms on it.

They are in the process of doing a compression test right now.

Does anyone have a engine diagram of the 2.5L? I just want to look and see where everything is and make sure everything is hooked up properly.

wyldside · Post by **wyldside** » May 31st, 2005, 2:58 pm

Yeah, that does sound like the water pump isn't circulating very well. I'd recommend doing a full coolant flush. Put the garden hose on various parts of the cooling system and insure the water flows freely. I've seen once when the rubber seal from an old O-ring dislodged and got chewed up in the water pump. 80% sure replacing the waterpump and performing the above proceedure will fix or find the problem.

kat · Post by **kat** » May 31st, 2005, 3:00 pm

How much does a water pump cost?

And we've flushed the system now about 4 or 5 times.

Nd4SpdSe · Post by **Nd4SpdSe** » May 31st, 2005, 3:06 pm

kat wrote:It's really weird how it's acting.
We thought it may be the water pump but it's looking more like the head gasket now...which pisses me off cause i have only drove with this engine for a month now. And i've only put less than 2000kms on it.

I would guess that the head gasket is not the cause of the problem, but a victim of the overheating. Normally if it was a head gasket, all that i've read is that you get white smoke, I've never heard of a situation as extereme as yours.

wyldside · Post by **wyldside** » May 31st, 2005, 3:09 pm

Well the water pump isn't very much ($60 maybe). The part that costs money is if you get a shop to do it for you. They ding you on labor costs. If you can do it yourself, I'd recommend going that route. It will save you money. It is a bit of pain in the a-- to do but your wallet will thank-you.

kat · Post by **kat** » May 31st, 2005, 4:16 pm

wyldside wrote:Well the water pump isn't very much ($60 maybe). The part that costs money is if you get a shop to do it for you. They ding you on labor costs. If you can do it yourself, I'd recommend going that route. It will save you money. It is a bit of pain in the a-- to do but your wallet will thank-you.

Yeah i'll be doing all the labour, I have a best friend who is a mechanic and i pay him with food hahaha

Plus my dad, brother, husband and i can all pretty much put our heads together and get most things done!

wyldside · Post by **wyldside** » May 31st, 2005, 4:36 pm

Well, good luck with it and let us know if you have any more problems after that.

XxantwawnxX · Post by **XxantwawnxX** » May 31st, 2005, 7:22 pm

Do the compression test anyway..just incase.

kat · Post by **kat** » May 31st, 2005, 7:30 pm

XxantwawnxX wrote:Do the compression test anyway..just incase.

Yeah my friend did the compression test and i met him driving away as i was heading there to find out how it turned out. He said he'd call me tonight to talk about it sooo.
Need to do the pressure test next as well.

kat · Post by **kat** » May 31st, 2005, 11:35 pm

Compression is fine.

My dad made a switch inside the car so i can keep the fan hooked up direct to the battery because it won't work otherwise.

He also left the car running for about 20 minutes tonight with the fan going and it was fine, heat gauge stayed where it normally should and there was no pressure in the lines.

So now we have to find all the wires and sensor for the fan.
As well we are going to check the water pump and change the belts we haven't changed yet at the same time.

jschrauwen · Post by **jschrauwen** » June 1st, 2005, 11:30 am

I personally would not circumvent the natural triggering system to initiate the rad fan from comming on. Find out the source of that problem and get it sorted. I would turn to the 2 (black and green) thermosensors located by the coolant filler neck and verify their serviceability.

I would also verify the integrity of the rad and confirm that their are no blockages in there since those are the smallest galleries for coolant to travel through.

Not sure how you accomplish a system flush. My method is to go to crappy tire (since you live in CA) and get a coolant line interconnect for flushing purposes. This is a clay coloured plastic "T" that is placed in the middle of the coolant return line from the interior heater core and just before the thermostat housing. I have done a previous post as to this procedure. Remove thermostat from housing and reconnect the thermostat housing. Open drain plug on the bottom of rad. Plug coolant lint to coolant reservoir (white plastic container). Attach garden hose to plastic "T" and turn on tap. Ensuring all caps are on, water should flush all coolant and anything else out through the rad drain plug. The higher the pressure the garden hose the better. Usually home water pressure is no more than 60 -70 psi, so it's completely safe. Once the water exiting the rad is turned to clear you obviously have removed all coolant. The pressure at which the water is exiting the rad in relation to the water pressure from the garden hose should give you some sort of an indication as to whether there may be a blockage or restriction. Normal procedures to refill and pressurize.

I don't recall you saying that any leaks were noticed at or by the water pump. Leaks are the first indicators that the water pump is not long for this world and I can't see replacing the water pump on spec.

Addressing the items I specified should be more than enough to zero in on the deffective parts/condition. Hope this helps.