Overheating: Give Me Your Opinion

Guys, I drove the car for at least 20 or 30 miles on Friday and everything was normal. My Ramchargers electric fan works very nice, so I come home and park the car. Saturday morning im going to leave for work so I crank the car up and let it sit for a couple of minutes, I walk in the house and walk back out and the car is starting to over heat. So I have to turn it off and take the Ranger to work. So, what do you think happened? Think the thermostat got stuck on closed or what? I had planned to buy a Grifin radiator in a couple of weeks but I believe I will buy one this wed. I am going to go pick up a 180 degree thermo and try it. I just recently changed coolant and waterpumps. I put in 50%antifreeze and 50%water&redline water wetter. All the times I have drove it since then I had no problems, but its like it just started in a instant. Im thinking its probably the thermo. What do you guys think it is?

Oh and plus should I buy a Motorcraft thermo for $14 or a remake for $5?

Dave

HISSIN50 said:

Dave, how long was the car idleing from when you turned it on to when you came out and saw it overheating?
if it was a few mins, your stat should have been closed anyhow. the condition of the radiator would not matter much either. (im assuming it takes more than a few mins to reach the stat opening temp. i know my cars do).
what was it doin when it was 'overheating?' boiling over, temp gauge reading too hot? stock or aftermarket gauge?

if you want to swap stats, i personally really like Mr Gaskets. balanced, flows a little better, has a bleed hole, and from my observations, it opens fully sooner than a parts store generic does.

good luck.

Click to expand...

Stock Gauge
coolant was comming from the overflow
yes, I do believe the Thermo was stuck closed-Going to replace that first and if it runs fine im going to hold off on the rad right now, but its still planned as a upgrade.
Thats the thermo im getting, all of what you said and it has a good price.

Thanks for you all help, hopefully I get one tomorrow. I will report back in.

Dave