My engine over heated. :cry:
My engine temp gadge does not work so I can't tell when problems are begining to occur. At first sight of smoke I turned the engine off. Luckly I was already at my grandparents house when it started to happen so I could just leave it where it was. I pop the hood and I already knew what I was going to see by the boiling noise comming from under the hood. And sure as **** the coolant was boiling.
Now I'm left with a few questions now that my engine has cooled down.
1. How the **** did my engine over heat? The coolant was full before I left for this trip and I've been checking all my fluid levels and everything seemed to be fine. Is the caused by a dirty radiator mabey? I had my fan on at the time and this happened to my dads Lincon when he had a dirty radiator with his fan on.
2. Where did all my coolant go? It was full when I started to drive. It was full when it had overheated. And now there is not a drop left in my car. I looked all in the engine bay to find any possible leaks but nothing there. And there is no pudle of coolant under my car ether. Did it all evaporate?
3. Well now I can't move my car because I nolonger have any coolant in it. So any one know what kind I should get?
it could be many things. but one thing is more sure.....you're starving your engine of coolant.
simple checks:
make sure that the rad drain plug is fully tightened. if its loose and slowly leaking....big problems.
check all your hoses (both inlet and outlet) fore, aft, left, right and under the engine and see if there are any leaks.
check your engine bay for any signs of leaking...drips, moist spots, etc.
could be that your thermostat has gone shitty....replace with OEM TOYOTA one...not knock off tawainese one from crappy tire.
check the overflow resevoir. is it full?
big checks:
could be that your rad is shite. a shite rad is usually the source of over heating and dysfunctional cooling. check the fins to see if they are cracked, warpped or heavily damaged.
blocked water passage: this is really bad. and it can be caused so brainlessly and easily. if you forget to remove all the foil off of the cover from the jug of coolant, those little foil pieces can sit in your passage and block it. although, i highly doubt that yours is. however, one can never be too safe...so just flush the fucking thing with water.
bad sender unit....although i highy doubt this is your problem. bad sender units will usually run the car really rich because the temps are off. however, prolonged neglect and the engine will run hot TRYING to get it up to temp. other symptoms might be occassional stalling and idle problems.
faulty water pump. another common problem that causes over heating....if your pump is not working, its not cooling. always good to replace the water pump anyways on old cars.
leaks, leaks, leaks,.....a gasket or seal could be cracked slowly draining your fluid. there could be a fracture in your hoses or such...so agin, check them or replace them.
heater core blockage...they calcify and eventually clog the inlet/outlet passage. old domestic cars suffer from this problem as many of the heater cores have to be replaced to prevent overheating.
just do thorough checks on your car and inspect or replace anything that may be suspect. its a good idea to invest in a mechanical water temp gauge....best thing i've done yet.
If this kind of thing hasn't happend before and everything checks out OK, it could be as simple as a plastic bag on the road that got caught in front of your radiator and blocked the air flow. I've even seen cases where a friend hit a bird and it stuck in the grill in front of the radiator and almost caused it to overheat!!
Actually I was not driving on the highway or anything. I was just practicing my parelle parking.
I'll check all thoes thing you mentioned Goodcookiedrift. Is there any special kind of coolant I should buy?
I have to drive this car home on Thursday cuz I gotta be in Toronto on Friday. So I hope I can fix the problem by then. Luckly my uncle up here is a army mechanic so mabey he could help me out.
If it is a head gasket your in trouble. Check your oil for green residue left by the coolant. It gets into your oil via the head gasket if it is leaking. If it is, change it pronto, you dont want the rad fluid turning your oil to jelly while your crusi'n down the 401 at 160k. Not good!
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There are those who do things, and those who take credit... The trick is to be in the first group, there is a lot less compitition.
otherwise it probably just evaporated. Sometimes a perfectly fine looking radiator can leak, and the stuff evaporates before you have a chance to notice. I've been their before, had a perfect looking rad, replaced everything in the cooling system except the rad ..cause the rad looked perfect, only to end up replacing the rad!
I replaced my rad recently with a 100% copper Modine with a lifetime guarantee, much more sturdy than the OE unit. Was around $250 after taxes from Crappy tire. Car never brakes a sweat, even at the track.
otherwise it probably just evaporated. Sometimes a perfectly fine looking radiator can leak, and the stuff evaporates before you have a chance to notice. I've been their before, had a perfect looking rad, replaced everything in the cooling system except the rad ..cause the rad looked perfect, only to end up replacing the rad!
I replaced my rad recently with a 100% copper Modine with a lifetime guarantee, much more sturdy than the OE unit. Was around $250 after taxes from Crappy tire. Car never brakes a sweat, even at the track.
Neil
copper modine huh? hows it handling. an aluminum fluidyne or modine would be nice...but the price is daunting.
how thick is the core on it?
btw, i found a setrab oil cooler....$40 usd....8 x 4 x 2 what you think?
Well it looks like the problem was caused by a soft upper and lower radiator hoses. Mailnly it was the lower one. It will collapse during hard acceloration. :x So it looks like the 2 hoses will have to be replaced. Also it appeared that I was wrong. There was still a fair amount of coolant left but just none that could be seen. But it seems to be a little dirty so when i get home I'll have to drain it all and fill it back up with new stuff. I also need to get a new rad cap cuz mine is starting to deteriorate (the seal). So mabey I can use this as an excuse to get one of those ricy TRD ones. They say they help raise the boiling point a bit so what the hell. And I was kinda right with my orignal thought cuz my rad is a bit dirty and we discovered that it is comming a bit loose (rad grill thingy, about 3 rows just at the bottem) on the passenger side. Does this mean I should replace my rad or should it be fixable after I get it cleaned?
I should be able to drive it home but my uncle told me to bring a **** load of water with me just incase. My take on all of this is... : :evil:
Thoe I know this should be expected cuz after all it is an old car. So I'm not really pissed off or any thing. If any thing I'm kinda happy cuz now that I know what needs to be fixed and my car will run better after it does get fixed. :wink:
Voodoo, you may be falling into the same trap as I, since it was an occaisional problem, I replaced the hoses first and thought it was fixed.. if a little bit of soft hose can cause it to overheat, and the bottom 3 rows of the rad are loose.. I'm betting the new hoses will make little difference, and you'll be buying a new rad soon, without a temp gauge this is pretty risky if ya ask me, from memory that car has a pretty good low K engine in it, I wouldn't wanna risk heating it up again.
Nick,
I have no idea what that oil cooler is! Setrab? It dimensionally sounds the same as the race cooler I got off that RA where the carbs came from. I find the OE cooler does a great job, man this car runs so cool... it's almost not hitting optimum operating temp ...now I just need to get an electric fan.
Personally I think a good durable (lifetime guarantee) OE rad should be good, optimize air flow under the hood, put a good electric fan on their and if it's still not enough, run some water wetter in it too (which wouldn't hurt anyways, since it adds some anti-corrosives etc.). My car runs sooo cool right now, I'd be amazed if it'll even run hot with stinking hot turbo and manifold jammed in their.
I tried to get the mystery two core by ordering a new one, but found out that all the OE manufacturers list the same partnumber for the SR5 Auto, and GTS. If you can find a copper rad (not mine!) you can take it in to most rad shops and they can sub a 2 row core for the OE core for probably about the same price as a new complete OE single core rad.
setrab oil cooler.....well put it this way, its off a NASCAR!!! it comes with an9 fittings also. like you, i'v been interested in lowering the operationg temp of the car as low as possible...cool runnings!!! so i thought this oil cooler might help out.
as for electric fan. i got a dual electric off of a nissan pulsar. fits like a glove. i just need to make some mounts for it. once i get access to the TIG again...or i might jsut rent a MIG....i'll show you the results and i'll make one for you if you'd like.
yeah, i'm gonna see if i can somehow locate one of those auto sr5 rads. maybe even box off the rad area sort of like Donovans 86...so all the air is directed to the rad.
i'm curious as to how low i can get the temp. right now, i'm running app. 190 degrees fer. i'm gonna shoot for 170!
voodoo, bringing water is fine as a backup.. There nothing wrong with water in the rad as a last resort when your stranded in the middle of no where on teh side of the highway. Just remember to drain it out when you get home, and get the right mixture into the cooling lines asap.
What thermostat are you running? Cause you should be able to get a 160 degree, that should do the trick. Cool engines always run richer, which isn't necessarily a bad thing for a predominantly track car.
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: :evil: 
...now I just need to get an electric fan.
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