Ohmster

I have a '95 Civic Del Sol with 119K miles on it, one small dent over front passenger tire, paint is peeling a bit on the hood (Florida). This has been a dream car, had it for a few months now, only had to do little maintenance stuff myself on it with help from this forum. Changed the clock spring, put on new tires, changed the VSS, changed the driver inside door handle, upper radiator hose burst, changed that. I change both the upper and lower radiator hoses because 119K is a lot of miles on rubber parts that are critical to the engine but I had a bit of a time getting all the air out and the gallon of coolant in. Most of the coolant went in but for a few ounces, no room for water. Overheated next day and found air in the system, had to squeeze the lower hose and add water until I got no more air from the system. That fixed it good, no more overheating, have new hoses now. That was a few weeks ago.

The car really runs very well but the cooling system acted up this week on way home from work (About a 15 mile drive in Florida sun.). I am terrible about keeping an eye on the temprature gauge, if it don't light up, I usually don't see it.

The car was running a little bit poorly, wanted to stall at traffic lights, and then I noticed the check engine light coming on and worse, the oil light coming on. Oh no, what now? Then I looked at the temp gauge and saw it way up over the H and quickly turned into a gas station and shut the car off. The coolant was not leaking but it sure was overheating and coming out of the cap into the reservoir. I opened the cap, added water to cool it down and that took a while because it was pretty hot, most of the water just boiled away until it cooled down enough to fill the system. The engine was running well and at a normal temperature now. I drove without the A/C home and made it almost but then it started to get hot again, I was stuck in traffic. What was funny though is that I am just below the danger H on the gauge and as I turn a corner and accelerate, the temperature came right back down again, almost to normal, right away. <FONT COLOR="green">The only thing that could do something like that would be an air bubble in the system. As the bubble goes by, now cool water passes over the sensor and the temperature goes down.</FONT>

I go home, cool down the car, then go to Advance Auto Parts and get a thermostat, gasket, new radiator cap, and a gallon of coolant, plus the guy recommends a bottle of radiator flush. I change the thermostat and gasket, the old one looked old but I could not see anything wrong with it, and put a new radiator cap on the system. I filled it with water, kept running it and squeezing the bottom hose to get all the air out, and now it runs fine. No more overheating.

Today is Saturday and would be a good day to do the cooling system flush so that I can add the coolant to the system. I ran it with only water this week so as not to waste expensive coolant in the event that something else was wrong.

Questions:

How do I know if the radiator fan is working right? This is an electrical fan and does not turn all the time, it is not like a regular fan where if it turns, it is okay. When should this fan go on and how do I know if it is working alright? When the car is cold and you turn on the engine, the fan does not turn. If the A/C is on, should the fan go on right away?

Should I drain the radiator completely and then use the flush product? This stuff is called "Zerex Radiator Super Flush" "10 minute flush". They say to drain radiator, add product, fill with water, run engine until it reaches operating temperature, turn on the heater all the way on high and run for 10 minutes. Shut off engine, allow to cool, drain system, start engine with heat on high and keep flushing with water until it comes out clear. Stop engine and completely drain it. Then fill with coolant and water.

Is flushing the cooling system on a 12 year old, 119K mile Honda a good idea? Will this help to keep the cooling system running nice and cool and reduce the chance of overheating?

The cooling system on this Honda is small, one gallon of coolant will barely fit in the thing when it is empty. The owner's manual recommends .95 gallon of coolant. So should I just fill it with coolant and if there is hardly any room for water, never mind, the coolant is better than water anyway?

This car has to last and be road worthy to get me to work every day. I want to do complete maintenance on the cooling system and be done with that issue once and for all, before I tackle something else. I have changed pretty much everything I can think of that may need replacing on an older car cooling system; cap, thermostat, and upper and lower radiator hoses. What else might need changing to close this chapter? What about the heater hoses? Are they in danger now of rupturing with this many miles on the car? Should they be changed now before adding the coolant? Where do you get these hoses and are they hard to change? The radiator hoses were easy but the heater hoses I know nothing about. What all do you guys think about that? If heater hose replacement is recommended, can you please provide anything helpful as I am completely clueless on this subject like pictures, URLs and links, any kind of
'How To" posts, locations of the parts, how to identify the parts, what tools will I need, how much time would I need, anything helpful, anything at all. Comments, is changing heater hoses a hard job, etc.

Well the weekend is here now and I want to have at it now. Please reply soon if you can so that I will know what to do. Thank you all so much for your help, you guys rock and without you, I would never have been able to afford and keep this car. Your answers were all top notch, the best, and very, very helpful. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Paul


Modified by Ohmster at 7:09 AM 8/11/2007


Modified by Ohmster at 7:37 AM 8/11/2007


Modified by Ohmster at 7:40 AM 8/11/2007


Modified by Ohmster at 7:42 AM 8/11/2007