my car keeps overheating.. boiled over once at friends house..tryed chargin his camaro..mine boiled over after 15 mins...put water in, went home.. puked all over the driveway... next day checked for broke hoses, clamps, cracks w.e...nothing..flushed it, put new coolant, drove it. light came on dim then steady... went home...it puked again... noticed crack in radiator replaced radiator... ran again new collant..light came on...heater worked.. went home...didnt puke, but was starting to boil...sounded like thermo wasnt workin right..gettin stuck...bought new thermo... noticed how much crap is in the way of thermo pulled damn near half the motor apart, put new thermo in.. drove it.no probs.. drove back to same friends house... light came on...turned heat on...NO HEAT...wtf...drove home...it filled my yard wit smoke (steam) this mornin loooked in and the overflow tank was full (cold) line, and rad was empty wtf do i do? help
d.l on meh car..
87 2.8L mpfi v6
some mods, nothin serious
new radiator, new thermo...(car had heat b4 new thermo)
215000 miles on motor, 40000 on used tranny
both are in good shape.. runs great...aside new cooling problem.
ive thought about doin throttle bypass...but havent decided.

 

do you bleed out the system or just fill and run? everything youre describing sounds like air pockets in the cooling system. whenever i do something w/ the cooling system, i fill it, run it, once the stat opens it lets out a ton of air. i fill it the rest of the way and wait till the fan comes on. then i raise the idle to about 2000rpms to bleed out any air pockets possibly left in the system, then put the cap on it.

 

Hot wire the fan???

 

if the coolant is actually boiling, then you aren't holding pressure. Replace the radiator cap and that might actuall fix the problem.

 

You say there is no water in the radiator????? IT sounds like you have a heater core problem, seeing how you have no heat. Its possible that the lines that go into the firewall have a puncture. Check the lines where I point to in my pic.

 

fan is coming on normally, that was one of the top on the checklist...examined rad. cap today..looks alil abused..seals worn...time for new...will post out come on mon ty

 

No heat can happen when there's no coolant in the system. Think of a big 3" PVC pipe with only a trickle of water in the bottom- that trickle isn't touching all the sides of the pipe. So that would explain no heat.

You said it puked... you mean it overflowed the overflow tank? Or by "puked" do you mean it overheated?

Did you check the oil? Low on oil can raise engine temp too; and if there's coolant in the oil, lookout. Is there steam coming out of the exhaust? Do the plugs look like they were steam-cleaned?

Yank the t-stat and drill two holes, north and south, thru the outer ring. That's an old hot rodder's trick that does two things; first and foremost, it allows any trapped air pocket underneath the thermostat to escape. And second, a little benefit, the car will run slightly cooler. A little bit of coolant can slip past the closed radiator; seems to have dropped my coolant temp a slight bit (like 5 or 10 degrees). 'Course I haven't run with an un-drilled stat for 7 or 8 years, so I could be wrong on the temp thing

 

Do this -

Let the car COMPLETELY COOL DOWN.

1) Fill the radiator
2) Leave cap OFF
3) Start engine
4) Let engine idle until the temp gets up to the temperature of the thermo (it WILL spit some coolant out as heats up)
5) When the thermo opens, it WILL suck almost ALL the water from the radiator.
6) Refill the radiator.
7) Cap it off, and let it keep idling
8) At 222º, the fan should kick on. Let it idle until the fan comes on. If by 240º it has NOT turned on, you have found your problem.

I'm going with the air pockets...