took the car for a short drive and then i got under the hood on the passenger side. i could hear the coolant tub gurgling fluid, car must have got a lil overheated. didnt think much of it, and suddenly out of nowhere, coolant fountains everywhere (and on me) along with steam, had to run away from the car.... walked back up to it after the steam went away to see what happened and the lil black pump thing (that I have no clue what its called) had BROKEN away from the small coolant hose that is attached to the throttle body. I have to replace this lil black thing because the plastic part that goes inside the hose broke off. anyone know what this is called and why the heck it just broke like that?? its round on the top and has another hose attached to it going towards the back of the engine.

 

Might just be (past) time for service replacement of the hoses. If one let go, you might want to inspect others for tell tale signs impending failure or better yet, replace them all and guarantee yourself many miles of carefree cruising.

 

I think the black thing you are talking about is the heater bypass valve. It uses vacuum controlled by your heater/ac control unit (in dash guy) to open the flow of coolant to your heatercore and close it.

Since pressure and obviously heat was building in the engine and not being vented where it should have been (rad cap and to a lesser extent, overflow bottle), I would suggest doing 3 things.

1. replace the radiator cap.
2. Replace the thermostat.
3. obviously replace the heater bypass valve that broke and any hoses that seem damaged.

Look also for a crushed lower radiator hose. It should have a spring to keep it from crushing inside it, but the previous owner may have skimped out. If it's crushed in when the car is on, then that would be why your car overheated a bit.

Also, it might be a good idea to flush your coolant system, this will make it apparent if any hoses or if the radiator itself is clogged. You could also leave the rad cap off and start the car and see if fluid is moving rapidly like it should when the car is on.

the rad cap, thermostat, and bypass valve are all cheap fixes.

Lastly, you should check your fan to see if it's functioning correctly. If you dont have it wired to a manual switch, put the car in park and get it to temp and check under the hood to see if the fan turns on before it overheats. It has to get quite hot for the stock fan switch to turn on (240). I hope you're not using straight water. With the stock coolant system setup the way it is, just water will boil over long before the car tries cooling itself down, and steam really really sucks at cooling an engine down . Use a mixture that gives you at least till 250-260 degrees F of boilover protection if you're using stock sensors and thermostat.

 

Also unbolt the top radiator support and tilt the rad towards the engine.Check between rad & condenser for anything blocking air flow.Just last week found a huge green trash bag blocking the whole radiator on my girlfriends son GTA when it overheated.

 

is there any way that i can hook everything up without a heater bypass valve?

 

found me a new heater bypass valve, new radiator cap, thermostat, the lower radiator hose (it seemed to be bad, kinda sticky underneathe) and also two jugs of 50/50 coolant. thanks for all the help guys. now i gotta flush this coolant system and hope all goes well. if you guys know of the best way to refill the system making sure there are no air pockets that might cause problems, let me know. thanks.

 

It might not hurt to run some Prestone Super Cleaner through it first. It really helps clean out rust deposits. It worked so well on mine that I had to flush it five times with plain water afterwards until the water started coming out clear.