longhorn74

few weeks ago my son's '05 Civic (56k) overheated and lost coolant...he may have driven it too much after but didn't notice til he saw the steam coming up. Dealer repl a broken hose...don't know if that caused the overheat or was a result.
Overheated again right away...dealer said head gasket but would have to tear down to find out. Took it to a trusted mechanic who performed tests and ruled out head gasket. Installed new t'stat and one fan relay. It runs at normal temp range around town and stop and go. When driven on freeway for 20-30 mins the temp creeps up to over halfway on gauge...when at this state both fans were cycling on for 15 seconds and off for 15 seconds. It had lost a small amount of coolant. It never did go more than just over halfway and then started to cool down. He's driven it in town for a couple days with no issues and no apparent coolant loss but the ambient temp has only been in the 70's. What causes the weird fan cycling and if we find it needing a head gasket are there some recommended high performance ones to replace the apparently weak Honda ones? Thanks for taking the time to read this.

kenbo21

Hey sorry to hear about the problem. It to me sounds like a head gasket. To fix this problem you can get the ARP headstub kit for about $130. This will stop the head from lifting and fix the overheating problem. They make a better gasket its cometic or something like that. They will run about $80 or so. But to have someone take it a part for you will cost a lot. But once you put in the ARP headstubs this problem shouldn't come back

toyomatt84

iTrader: (1)

Have you flushed the coolant lines thoroughly? It's not uncommon for the heater core to get clogged in these vehicles. In fact, coolant issues derived from blocked passages happen quite often here.