95 Avalon- Please help!

[TOYOTOYS]

Hello All,
I have a 1995 Toyota Avalon that we pretty much use as a secondary car. A while back the timing belt and water pump were replaced but as far as I know the thermostat wasnt. After that happened it was used for about two months the most, then it was parked for about three to four months straight.

Here is were the problem begins:
My wife was driving it home from work one day and she smelled it overheating but the weird part about it is that it wasnt showing it getting overheated on the temp gauge. As soon as it cooled down she put water in it and drove home carefully, when she got home i opened the hood to to check it out. You could see the water overflowing out of the reserve tank like if maybe the water aint going in the engine because the thermostat is stuck? The weird part is that it doesnt show it getting hot in the temp gauge but you could clearly see that its not normal for the water to be overflowing like that. Also if it helps the car runs perfect.
So do you think that it might be the thermostat that is stuck closed?

[toyomoho]

Could be a stuck T-stat. The T-stat closes off coolant coming out of the engine. The temp gauge is on cool side of the T-stat. Hot coolant on one side of the T-stat, cooler on the other gauge side.

[TOYOTOYS]

Originally Posted by toyomoho

Could be a stuck T-stat. The T-stat closes off coolant coming out of the engine. The temp gauge is on cool side of the T-stat. Hot coolant on one side of the T-stat, cooler on the other gauge side.

Thanks for the help.

[TrailDust]

A convenient way to work around a bad thermostat in a pinch is to run the heater in your car. The coolant that flows to the heater radiator will bypass the thermostat on most cars and warm the coolant on the other side, which will get the thermostat to open up. It's worked for me more than once over the years on a couple different vehicles.

TrailDust

[TOYOTOYS]

Originally Posted by TOYOTOYS

Thanks for the help.

Do you know where i could see a pictorial in this or instructions?

[TOYOTOYS]

Originally Posted by TrailDust

A convenient way to work around a bad thermostat in a pinch is to run the heater in your car. The coolant that flows to the heater radiator will bypass the thermostat on most cars and warm the coolant on the other side, which will get the thermostat to open up. It's worked for me more than once over the years on a couple different vehicles.

TrailDust

Do you know where i could see a pictorial in this or instructions?

[TrailDust]

Originally Posted by TOYOTOYS

Do you know where i could see a pictorial in this or instructions?

Not off-hand. But I'll check a couple of sources and if I find any diagrams I'll post them.

[new echo owner]

This is for a Camry 1MZ-FE but it would be similar for your car too, try page 328: http://www.camrystuff.com/manuals/Gen3/eg2.pdf.

N.E.O.