Ok folks, I am at the end of my rope here. After the whole radiator exploding fiasco, I am stumped again by cooling problems. As far as I can tell, my coolant is not properly circulating. I've let the car idle up to about 220 before shutting it off, and each time, the top rad hose remains bone dry, and cool. The thermostat is new, and I just tested it in a pot of boiling water. The radiator and hoses are brand new. The water pump worked before, is it possible it broke when the car overheated? Or perhaps that it breaking at some prior point in time was the source of it overheating? Also, I did not notice the cooling fan turn on, isn't it supposed to come on at 220ish, stock? I've already run through the routine for troubleshooting that, it runs when manually grounded and I've replaced the switch, so I'm kind of confused there too. Oh, and the total time from cold to 220 was about 5 mins, regardless, pretty quick. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

I would say it's the water pump if the upper hose does not get hot.

 

At 220 the upper radiator hose should be pressurized and hot. It does sound like there might be a problem with the pump. What temp thermostat and fan switch do you have? The stock fan switch does turn them on around 220 ish (which is way too late in my opinion). Do the fans ever turn on?

 

I've got a stock temp fan switch, and a 180 degree thermostat. After testing the thermostat and seeing that it worked, I pretty much convinced myself that I needed a new waterpump. So I went at got one, but I won't have time to install it until next weekend. As far as the fan goes, I didn't see it turn on, but I didn't run my car very long, as it was heating up alarmingly fast. Does anyone know exactly what temp the fan is supposed to come on at? Also, should I invest in a lower temp fan switch? Thanks everyone.

 

The stock fan switch should make them come on around 220 ish. I used to run the same setup as you (180 stat, stock fan switch) and the temp would constantly hover at 220 which was too high in my opinion. I installed the 180 fan switch and now it maintains a constant 180 as long as the fan motors are working properly. I say it was well worth the money and since then I've installed a fan switch on every 3rd gen I own.

 

You want part #609-106