Hello! Last night I came to the sudden and saddening realization that my 86 2.5 overheats when sitting still too long. This was discovered while waiting at a drive thru (long slow line) when I looked at the temp gauge and it was reading at 260 with the temp warning light on. I don't know how long it was overheating for but thankfully I was just at an idle. I shut the car off and noticed the smell of coolant with some bubbling that sounded like the coolant was boiling or leaking. the coolant seamed to be coming from the hack half
For now, there is no coolant in the oil, so I'm thinking I either blew a coolant line or some component melted.
details I just checked. There \s still coolant in the thermostat/ coolant fill side and about an inch of coolant in the reservoir in the front. Im really thinking I blew a hose now and possibly introduced air into the system.
I guess it isnt engaging. All the wires look fine though. Ive only had the car 3 weeks, 1 week was waiting on an new fuel pump. so 2 weeks of 5 minute drives to work and 5 longer (20+ mile) drives and 1 that was 2 hours on the highway. It never gave any indication of over heating
From what I could tell, the leak is in the back half, but looks like it was dripping from just behind the seats. I couldnt identify anything aside from the coolant on the ground. There was no light to look underneath and trace it. The therm gasket housing in in perfect condition and full of clean coolant.
So right now Im trying to fill the coolant. I have the rad cap and therm housing cap off, on level ground. When I start the car to start the purge, the therm housing side starts gushing coolant with in 20 seconds. Is there a work around for this?
I think i need a procedure list/ guide. Ive seen a few and Im trying one but I don't know if it actually works.
Gall757 do you mean there is a possibility I did not blow a hose and instead engaged a fail safe of sorts?
Hose clamps are only as good as designed and installed. Too much pressure will force water by the clamp. Your car is designed to never operate over 235*. There is a radiator fan that should turn on at that temp. The switch is in the engine block. You should test the fan by grounding the switch wire on the engine block......
[This message has been edited by Gall757 (edited 04-11-2015).]
So I took off both caps (radiator in front and therm housing in back)
poured coolant in the resevoir first (gave about 4 inches above the resevoir intake) then slowly poured ~1 cup at a time into the thermostat housing opening with the termostate out.
Every cup, I would check to see if the fluid was coming from the radiator cap openng.
Once I saw the mouth at the radiator cap opening was wet, I capped it off and continued to slowly fill the thermostat housing opening until the neck was full.
Replaced the Therm Housing cap with an oil filter wrench with the thermostat out.
Started the car and ran for 30 seconds, shut if off, removed the therm housing cap,
added coolant accordingly
lather rinse repeat (5 times for me) until it stopped dropping in levels and the side house no longer spat out bubbles.
Reinserted the thermostat, wrenched down the thermostat housing cap, finished filling the reservoir up front, leaving apprpriate space for expansion.
let it run until it reached 220, gave it a hard rev and checked for leaking coolant.
Well this quick fix i explained got me 1300 miles home. It was a nightmare drive. if I shut the car off, i had to wait until it cooled to start again (about 1 hour) so I stopped turning it off. Stopping every 200 miles for gas, I only shut the car off twice. Once was to sleep. The other times, I had 5 minutes to run inside, go to the bathroom, grab and drink and fill the tank to prevent the overheating.
Then... I developed an oil leak somewhere around mile 600, the car stopped shifting with the clutch so I had to learn clutchless shifting on the fly, if I went 75mph, the car would shake like it was about to explode on me so I had to go 68mph but I made it home with no overheating!
