cooling problems...help needed.

Tough one. A bubble in the hose, a new hose??? All the coolant was gone?

Bubble in upper hose? When is the last time you replaced your t-stat? Does it blow white smoke while running? Any water in oil?

first off, i would return the hose for a new one. while you are doing a hose, do your t-stat. use a nice one like Mr Gasket 180*. IIRC, you are in texas, so you and i have similar weather (im in tucson). the 180 balanced Mr. G stat works well. i had a new parts store one in for one week before the swap and the Mr. G is much better (opens fully 10* sooner).

F.S 163 hits on a good point. if this is occuring due to a blown head gasket or other mechanical difficulty, that needs to be addressed first and asap. you will see white smoke out of the tail pipes if your burnin (combusting) coolant. check your oil for milky mix. if that seems ok:

i would give it a flush and try new stuff. i like to overfill the system upon flushing and refilling (allows for coolant to bleed air out and not run dry). when you do this (i dont like flushing products, BTW. only time i would do that is if i had a new rad), use distilled water and premix it (i use an old pitcher) so you dont have water and coolant separate.

i hope its not something more involved. if your stat is stuck closed, you could be boiling your coolant away. dont forget a new cap (i toss one on every year or so just for the sake of doing so. cheap).

let us know what you find. im still not sure how you could bubble a hose. btw, check the new hose for a spring inside it where it bends. keeps the hose from collapsing.

when you refill and bleed the system, jack up the front end or park on a hill so that the cap is the highest part of the system (helps with bleeding). i run the car like this for ~20 mins. cap off (start with cap off so you dont burn yourself). you can look down the top of the rad where the cap would be and watch the coolant run from the pass side toward teh drivers side. also use a cooking thermometer, etc to check the coolant temp. should not be too hot there (esp this time of year). i did mine when it was 110* out and i was reading ~160-170*.

running it like this lets you see that things are kinda working and allows air to bleed out (some say this is unnecessary due to the closed system, but enough people have probs, i think its a good idea). you will get some air out.
like i said, let us know what you find and we will go from there. good luck.

And once you get the temp under control, throw some Redline water wetter in there too. It helps.

If you have a blown head gasket between a water passage and a cylinder it should blow out white smoke. Also, if there is water in the oil it should look kinda milky. When you drain your oil look for coolant bubbles, coolant doesn't mix with oil very well. It's hard to explain, but if you've done a lot of oil changes you will notice a difference in the oil. Device inside the coolant reservoir... coolant level sensor? I think that's what it's called. Yes should be connected to the cap, has wires connected to the cap too right? You leave the actual radiator cap off. Take it off while it's cold and run it up to temp. You should see coolant start to flow right about 180*. It's alright Bro all of us were new to this at one time or another. I changed my intake yesterday and I have to add coolant, burp out the air, and change the oil today. So I'll be doing the same crap.

One more thing. Make sure you radiator cap is healthy but not TOO healthy. Get the stock pressure rated cap unless your cooling system is top notch. Stock is 16lbs right guys? I don't remember I will have to go out and look.

car smokes.... looses its antifreeze..... over heats.....
Head gasket...
Sorry man
My oil did not look like a milkshake. My radiator fluid looked good too inside of the radiator. When i overheated i puked a milkshake looking fluid into my resevoir. Is your resevior coaked with a brown looking film? I had a compression leak and a water jacket leak...

He didn't say where the smoke was coming from. It may be coming from the engine compartment we don't know. Don't jump to conclusions quite yet it could be a coolant leak. Let's hope it is for his sake.

If it's not coming out of the exhuast your head gaskets are probably okay unless overheating it killed them. Worst case is your block is cracked and all your coolant is spilling out. But I doubt that is the case. You have a coolant leak somewhere it looks like. Check the passenger side floorboard and see if it's wet. Does it smell like hot coolant in the car? Is your water pump dripping water out of the hole in it? It could be anywhere and anything that coolant travels through. Check it out.

fox beat me to it. i agree in full. clean it up and watch for leaks with it running. you will have to be under the car with it running probably. look under the water pump, you will see a hole (weep hole). they can lose a good amount of coolant. and if you have a mech fan, they may not last long. the coolant likes to drain out the weep hole, down the rad hose and drop. mine went and was leaking at the front drivers side of the rad. you have to trace it.

also, another check for blown headgasket is to look in the rad (cap off) while its running. you will see some bubbles in the coolant (compression leaking into the coolant makes it into a hot spring). i doubt this as well. just a check to do if you want.

id really look at the heater core (not physically, but examine the area). damp carpet, as mentioned, and fog on the inside of the windshield, etc are all tell tale signs. with the labor and cost involved, you dont want that either. sorry man.

If it turns out to be the heater core you can bypass it until you have the cash to get it fixed. You will just be cold in the winter.

i had my buddy shawn help me change out my heater core. That and my head gaskets. Yes i have had bad luck. It sounds like a simple coolant leak as of right now. Can you pinpoint where the steam is coming from?

Have you checked which direction the waterpump is flowing?

p.exeter_bleu said:

no, how do i do that?

Click to expand...

i think what sly fox is getting at is making sure you have the correct application water pump. the stangs with serpentine belts use a reverse rotation pump; older v-belted stangs use a standard rotation pump.