This has been an incredibly aggravating 2 weeks...

Cruising on the open highway in 4th or 5th gear at around 110 km/h causes my engine to quickly climb to around 100C/210F and hotter. Needless to say, if I was running straight water, this would be a big problem. This happened a couple of weeks ago, but I was in heavy traffic and had no offramp to turn around. The guage increased up to around 115C/240F and I heard a pop sound and a flood of steam shot out from under the hood. I figured the cap blew, and at about that time I found a place where I could turn around and get into the lanes that returned to town. I coasted back to the nearest gas station and popped the hood. My damn rad blew apart, from top to bottom, (plastic rad/why didn't the cap pop first?) completely split. Mad as hell, I phoned a buddy of mine to drive me to the wrecker. I snagged a metal rad out of a Z28 in great condition, popped it in, bought a new thermostat from lordco and headed home.... At home I started to remove the T-stat housing to replace the thermostat. One bolt broke off in the manifold... Ok, so I used an extractor bit and it broke off to... so I welded a stud to it, and it broke too... Now that the extractor bit temper was killed, I drilled it out and retapped the hole, replaced the tstat and the housing, flushed the rad with prestone rad flush, filled the cooling system up with fresh 50/50 coolant and figured that was that. Car still gets hot, exactly the same as before.

Yesterday I diagnosed a long-term "random" rough running problem (like car runs on 6 or 7 cylinders, but i';ve checked the wires, plugs and cap/rotor so many times and sometimes, randomly it runs fine)... The cooling temp sensor was cracked and when I jiggled it, the plastic piece on top broke off... So I bought a new one... Now that wont come out either and I'm afraid it'll break off in there too... Anyway, on the drive to buy the sensor, my top rad hose blew up... Great, so I bought one of those too and some more coolant. I havn't yet found someone to borrow a 1/2 ratchet off of to remove and replace the sensor (my 3/8s feel like it'll break i'm torking so hard), but I'll do that ASAP. Anyhow, the car still gets hot. I even replaced the rad cap...

In summary:

New Rad
New Tstat
New Tstat housing
New upper rad hose
New Rad Cap
New coolant 50/50
1 bottle 'wetter'

Still gets up to 100 celcius ina hurry on a hot day.

Water pump seems to pump quite well... at an idle, the heater hose pumps out more water as my household sink can... Car can idle all day and it doesn't get hot.. Infact, I leave it idleing to cool down sometimes.

WTF?

 

have you check out your air dam under your car? with out it, your car can't get no air, cause it has no grill.

 

Ah, the flappy plastic thing I never put back on after painting it... I feel so silly now

Cheers,

I'll find one from somewhere and get that back together.

 

$1.99 a foot at the pick your part autowrecker... Ripped off about 4 air dams off 3rd gen camaros and firebirds and took home the deepest one. 20 degrees cooler on the drive back... I can't belive I didn't think of that

Thanks again,

Landon

-total build cost $4.88, and a free hammer some guy left in a cavalier

 

glad to hear you got it fixed, mine always falls and stuff, its a wonder i havn't lost it.

Kyle