sparkrov

Thanks for checking out this post. My wife's 98 Civic of two months (we just bought it) has recently been struggling with a fluctuation of temperature which eventually leads to overheating . We first noticed the problem soon after our return from our honeymoon trip to Vegas, which by the way, had no signs of overheating or problems the entiure trip.
One morning, on the way to work she noticed it was rising and the heater went cold. The car made it about ten blocks and she pulled over. Automatically i decided it had to be a thermostat problem. That same day i changed the thermostat and it was still overheating. So i checked the radiator. The coolant flushed fine and i then poured more into the top to confirm a free flow to the drain plug. The radiator is "new" from the car dealer.
Next i decided to flush the system and make sure the fluid was consistant. Still no avail (tested both with a thermostat and without). SO i concluded it had to be a water pump. Atfer that fun event, (and no appearant problem with the old water pump) i noticed it fluctuated somewhat, but was still overheating. I drove the car without the thermostat (to make sure) though the city and down the interstate and it seemed like the problem was resolved. The water barely made it past the"Cold" mark. Then, after returning back into town, sitting in traffic, the car suddenly began to rise and the heater went cold. I tried it again. I noticed when it started rising (and the heater went cold), if i ran the car in a higher gear, the heater would blow HOT air and the temp would cool down to a typical level. I drove this way for nearly ten miles maintaining temperature between normal and 3/4 on the temp guage. Eventually it overheated beyond a safe point regardless the RPMs and i had to stop and let it cool.

Strange huh? I assume the water is having a difficult time cycling. High RPMS seem to affect the system somewhat, but it's beyond my comprehension. I guess the only other factors could be HEAD GASKET or BAD HOSES.. Any ideas? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks,

Ben J.

snatch

Hoses are a cheap fix to check out if that's your problem. Are you loosing any coolant?

I might guess headgasket too. Are you showing any of the other symptoms? Milky coolant, oil in coolant, white smoke? Replaced your radiator cap? (although I don't think this would cause you to overheat).

old man neri

It does sound like a flow problem. Be absolutly sure that there are no clogs anywhere.

Also, as odd as it may seem. Are the hoses connected properly to the correct locations. Nothing is crossed or plugged to the wrong spot?

CivicBlack

one time at night when i was driving my old mazda mx-3, the car went **** faced on me and over heated. It had plenty of oil, and coolant in it and i didn't understand what had happened. It ended up getting my car home later that night and the next morning i noticed that my alternator belt had broken off. So the next day i got the belt replaced at my friends house and on the way home i hit a deer and totalled the car. So in my experience with the mazda over heating can be caused by alternators and deers.

old man neri

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by CivicBlack &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> So in my experience with the mazda over heating can be caused by alternators and deers.</TD></TR></TABLE>

One time my car overheated and it was a full moon out, so clearly full moons cause overheating.



However if you mazda was sharing it's alternator belt with the water pump that would have done it.

JCritt

could it be a possible fan issue?

freakin_eLRoD

is the fan turning on at all when it heats up? the culprit could be the thermoswitch which turns the fan on once its at a certain temp...i've had three go bad on my old sohc motor.....

EGDC2CIVIC

did you bleed the system of air, if your not loosing coolant that would be my guess and i notice you said nothing about bleeding it, try that and if not then check your headgasket.

you could of blew the gasket if the motor overheated to bad

https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=1144691


Modified by EGDC2CIVIC at 8:38 PM 1/16/2006

sparkrov

Well, after all, it was the head gasket. Thanks everyone for your help