HELP! Car overheating

[KamiKaziDK]

Ok.....so here's the deal. I was driving up to a friends house one night when my cooling system decided to have a catostrophic breakdown, cracked the radiator and the water pump took a crap on me too, zipped up to redline faster than I could get off the road. So I get the car home and replace the water pump, radiator, t-stat and balancer all at the same time and my car is still overheating after only a couple miles. I'm running up to all mustang today to get a fan assembly because a couple people said it might be the high speed fan. Anyone else have any other ideas? I really need this fixed as it's my main way of transportation.

 

[ShiftTheDrift]

I might be going off on a limb here, but did you maybe install the thermo backwards by mistake?

 

[Chythar]

Youe engine shouldn't overheat that quickly, even without a cooling fan. You'd have to be driving for a while on surface streets before you'd need the fan.

Did you take the time to bleed the system? When you pop your radator cap, can you smell exhaust fumes in the radiator? If so, your head gaskets are blown. Is the coolant level in the radiator dropping, or staying constant? Also, check your oil - if it's a milky color, you've got coolant in the oil which is also a bad head gasket.

Also, check and see if your radiator cap is taking pressure. If it's old and doesn't hold enough pressure (18psi, I think), the coolant system won't work right.

 

[eschlenz]

Make sure all air is bled out of the system and that the t-stat is in right.

 

[ShiftTheDrift]

Burp your cooling system: how to

 

[KamiKaziDK]

Yeah, the t-stat is in correctly and I put a new rad cap on also. I'll change the oil today and check if it's milky. That can be a cracked head though too, right? I'll check the exhaust fume thing also. So should I not even worry about picking up a fan then and get head gaskets instead?

 

[ShiftTheDrift]

Cracked head or more so a warpped head? That will depend on how long you ran the car when it was overheating.
I'd get all the misc stuff done first before pulling the heads and getting them leak tested and/or re-surfaced.

..and most obviously are you losing any coolant?

If the thermo is installed correctly, I'm willing to bet it's trapped air in the return inlet.