i have a 84 firebird with a 2.8. I was driving home this morning and just after leaving y friends house i looked at my guages and my temp was at 260. i stopped the car and watied for it to cool down then drove agian , and repeated this till i got home.
This afternoon i started to trouble shoot the issue. I thought it might me my water pump , but when i detached the upper radiator house there was plenty of fluid flowing, I changed the thermastate in dec. and i cleaned and flushed my radiator today. still no luck. I also have no heat in my car wich has been this was since oct , i never realy used the heat befor that i just noticed it then . If anyone has any ideas please help me

 

more than likely your cooling fans took a dump if you have an electric fan check that out

 

When was the last time you had the radiator flushed, is there any leaves, debrits blocking the front of the radiator? You have an 84 so you should have a fan blade attached to the wp pulley.

 

it has the mechnical fan straight off the water pump. its spins fine with no noise or anything and each blade is fully intacked with no dents, as for the radiator there was tons of debris inbetween the radiator and the ac radiator , i pulled the radiators out removed all the leaves and large particles then sprayed it with the garden hose from behind trying to force all the other matter out. I did this repetadly till i could see through it easily. theres still some small fibers here and there but nothing thats going to abstruct air flow very much, A few leafs here and there are folded over as with any radiator none of the viens have been damaged. after removing the debris from the front i flushed the radiator its self tons of black " gook" came out not muddy or anything just realy dark dirty coolent. I imagine this still remains with the coolent that was left in the block.
is it possible my water pump or thermostat are shot?

 

Check your fan clutch. The only thing that throws me is that you have no heat that could be the heater core or thermostat. You said that you checked the top radiator hose what about the bottom one?

 

i dont think i understand what you mean. it looked fine to me when i took the radiator out? what are you saying to look for? I think tomorrow im gona change my thermostat and see if that does it even though it was done recently mabey it has some junk in it or what not. could my heater core cause any of these problems other then not having heat. i have one to replace it with but i realy dont have the time to rip my dash apart for that yet.

 

If the heater core leaks, then yes! A leaky heater core will probably cause either smoke to come from the passenger side of the dash, or water to run into the passenger floor pan area...or both...

And what he mentioned about the bottom radiator hose...that's the one that takes all the heat and collects sludge. You can do a quick physical test to it....when the car is very cold, obviously, grab the sucker and squeeze it at various places. It should be pretty stiff. If it's mushy, then the rubber has been destroyed by the heat and it needs replacing.

Does the car have working a/c? If the answer is no, did it USED to work? If the a/c blows warm, even after showing a normal charge of coolant in the system, and it used to work before the overheating problems, then there's a good chance that something in the fan is not working properly. My car had an electric fan and mysteriously one day my A/C started blowing warm. Two weeks down the road, the car overheated. I discovered my electric fan had short circuited and died. Replaced it with a manual fan and voila, all of a sudden my compressor started cycling. The air blew cool, but not cold. I add a can of freon, and BAM, I have working A/C. Sorry about the long explanation....I just wanted to explain to you the correlation here. If the fan isnt pulling enough air, then not only is it not pulling enough heat out of your radiator, but it's not pulling enough heat off of the A/C's either condensor or evaporator..I cant remember which.... You get the point. G0d damn I need to go to sleep...I'm rambling!

 

i do have a mechnical fan that works fine. the lower radiator hose was kinda soft but not mush like jello or anything just easy to squeeze. No my heater core doesnt leak i think it may just be cloged. could my water pump be cloged? umm any other ides its raning out today so its realy gona suck doing any of this but im sure as hell gona try.

 

Don't know about the water pump.....I SUPPOSE it's possible....but I don't think any of the radiator sludge would be able to make its way up the bottom to the water pump. And upper radiator hose, well no sludge gets up there anyways. And if it did, it'd just gunk up the thermostat. Now, maybe there's something wrong inside the water pump, like the turbine blades are broken or something. If you wanna make a shot in the dark, you can try changing out the water pump and see what happens. I dont think it's too expensive for a replacement. Just...buy 'remanufactured' and not 'rebuilt', if you've got the option. Yes, there is a difference.

 

im gona try and just do the thermostat today because of the rain and all and its less$ to do a trouble shooting guess. I have no prob replacing the water pump if that is the prob, but dont waba spend the $ to find out that wasnt it. is there any way i can flush the engine its self , i only flushed my radiator?

 

i took the thermostat out and ran it like that , the temp never reached 260 but it was still way up there around 240. as i started to feel all the hoses and check wich ones were hot,cold exct. I noticed a squeeling noise coming from a pully, im assuming water pump that where it sounds like and would make sence, so i went and got myself a water pump from napa for 40$ and a new 180 thermostat instead of the 195 that was in it.
now all i have to do is wait for sunny weather or use of a garage , after this is done ill keep you posted , thanks agian for your help.

 

Hope it works out for you.

 

The clutch fan is what the fan mounts onto. There are two types thermo and non-thermo. Whenever you check the bottom hose remember that there is a spring in it so it may still feel firm. I hope that the water pump fixes your problem though.

 

what the diffrence and function of the two diffrent fan clutches?

 

I believe the non-thermo fan clutch slips and slows the fan down or stops it according to rpms....where the thermo one has a sensor hookup somewhere and does this according to the temperature it picks up. Aka, the fan will not spin, even with the car sitting still, when the engine is too cold. I THINK these explanations are right anyways.....

 

2 weeks ago my car was overheating like a b****....changed the thermo and the heater diverter valve and it never gets higher than 1/4 of the way up the temp meter (forget what actual number that is, but it stays cool)

 

look under your car and check for the air dam, if its there try to add another section. i did this and my temp is always at 100 - 150 degrees in the summer

 

prob is all gone. i attacked the water pump today. when i pulled it off i found the remains of what was a water pump fan, the plastic plade had shatered. after installing the new one wich has a metal fan all is well no leaks and no over heating . thanks to all who replyed.