Alright guys, i'm not all that great with the cooling system in general but i followed this board and did some research adn did what i thought to be a good idea at the time. Ok so here's the story:

Car used to run great, previous owner hardwired secondary fan to stay on all the time. Then i went ahead and did white faced gauges, put the temp gauge back on and wow was it off. i wasn't too worried though cuz i knew my car was fine. So then at the Toms River meet in NJ a couple months ago we were checking out each others car's and i noticed a huge pile of coolant underneath my car, pop the hood and the engine was still really hot even though it had been sitting there for a good 1-2 hours.

After that ordeal, my tranny blew a day or two later, so i spent the next 3 weeks trying to get it in and finally i did. Meanwhile during this process i decided to replace the lower hose and drain my cooling system in order to try and fix the overheating problem that i had been having. got the trans in, up and running great but yet the car was still overheating. So thats when i went ahead and browsed this board.

So far i have changed the coolant (ran the car with cap off etc), new lower hose, new tstat and gasket, and new coolant temp sensor. I did the tstat today so i lost some coolant and wanted to fill it up to proper level, now when i run the car with the cap off the gauge doesn't move at all. I disconnected both fans and still, nothing. I assumed at first that it was just the sendnig unit for the gauge was fried, but then i wondered shouldn't the tstat open despite the fact that my gauge isn't working? (It's a 180 stat btw). So i'm running the car watching for the coolant level to dip down so i could finally finish up yet it starts to smoke. i let it go on for 5 more mins still nothing, turn the car off, put the cap on and turn it on. all of a sudden my gauge starts to creep up faster and faster so i quickly shut it off to try and get the air out before it went any further. try the same thing with teh cap off, still it wasn't heating up so i sat there watching, after a few more mins i turned the car off and coolant just comes out in a projectile fashion from the neck of the radiator all over my car.

Sorry for the long post but i have no idea what this means, what should i replace, does this mean that my tstat is bad? or that my water pump or radiator is bad? I need ideas, any, please!

i'm also going to try timing tonight to make sure i didn't throw it off during the tranny install but after my radiator just puking up coolant i don't think thats the problem.

 

Well, did you fix your guage that you said was off when you put in a white faced guage insert?

Also, where did the leak you said you saw under the car come from? My guess is the water pump. Pressure test the thing to see what's going on, that way you don't get burned by liquid hot coolant...

 

no the gauge was not off before i did the gauges, but i put the needle back on after doing the gauges in the spot where i figured was closest to where it was usually at. a couple days later the needle would just fly up only after like 10 mins of driving which i figured was the car overheating. the puddle from underneath the car was coming from the lower hose, you could tell because the lower portion of it was all rotted and had pin hole leaks in it.

as for an update i drained and refilled the coolant again, put both fans on to run at the same time and now the gauge shows that it is running very cool, which is good. now when you turn the dash lights on without turning the car on, shouldn't the temp gauge peg since you're grounding it? well mine doesn't do that. so i'm beginning to think that my car is actualy running ok now, and its just a matter of fixing the gauge. any other thoughts?

and besides its a good excuse to get a gauge pillar heh