beastman@

I got a free honda civic today: 99 LX Sedan, auto, 168,xxx miles.

Driving the car home, got on the highway, the temp gauge went right up to H and I saw white smoke pouring from under the hood. Reserve tank was pretty much bone dry when I got home.

I have replaced the thermostat, and all new coolant. No help. While refilling the coolant I noticed some was dripping out from down below, couldn't find the source.

I know the old "blast the heat" when the temp rises trick, but cold air was coming out when I had it on full heat.

When the AC is on, the drivers side fan will kick on. I have yet to see the passenger side fan turn on, regardless of temperature. I replaced the fan switch (the one connected to the thermostat housing), I still get the drivers side fan when AC is running, passenger side fan still doesn't run. Is there another fan switch or do both fans use that same switch?

The white smoke is coming from under the hood not the tailpipe, the thickest of it comes from the front passenger corner just above the headlight.

The coolant drip is up in front, under the radiator. I can see some coolant running down the front as I'm filling up the radiator. (I'm not letting it pour out of the filler cap, I'm doing it slowly with a funnel). It does drip from two places though, both drips coming off the black plastic splash guard.

I'm still puzzled by the no heat thing. What is the heater core?

civic_driver

Could be coming from the heater core if you didn't get any heat.

brucepick

Sounds scary to me.
Even if the cause of your overheating was a minor leak, it looks like you may have lost a lot of coolant and had a major overheat event. Which can warp the head, which will make sure the head gasket leaks if it wasn't already leaking.

Sorry - I have h/g leak on the brain because that's what happened to wife's daughter's car. Not a Honda though. Ya gotta find where it's leaking from, or where its leaking into (like into the oil or combustion chamber via a head gasket leak).

Fill and refill it with plain water till you find where the leak is. Idle it in the driveway and watch. If your exhaust is steamy then it's getting in the combustion chamber. If oil is creamy then it has water in it. Look all around every part of cooling system for slimy wet mess. Including, find the hoses to cabin heater and check those. The heat exchanger could also leak.

ek-g6

Your fan doesnt seem to be coming on, check to see if ground connection is good. If good connection, check your fan switch, it may have gone bad on you. Where is the white smoke coming from, if from your tailpipe, your motor might have a blown headgasket. Definitely try to find out where the leak is coming from, can you tell us if it coming from the front of the motor or the back?

jtmartin96civic

one way you can check if your fan switch is bad is to take a small piece of wire and stick it in the plug where the contacts are and turn the key to "run" not "start" and if you put the wire in the right spot the fan should come on and stay on with the jumper.

if the fan does come on... its that fan switch, and they're like $15. I just replaced mine. if the fan doesnt come on... then your problem lies deeper.

beastman@

BUMP. I think the leak may not have been there until the overheating started. My uncle said he never had the car overheat. Could that cause a leak to form, even if there wasn't much coolant to spill out?

beastman@

Bump. More info added to first post.

92EG8

your radiator is cracked. Use a hose instead so you wont be wasting coolant
Take the splash guard off or move it or go under the car to get a visual. Your heater isn't working because the is a little metal cable on the firewall that hooks on to a piece of plastic that swivels a butterfly inside the heater coree. I dont have a picture of it but if u want a have a friend go inside and and turn the control from heater to cool and u should see toward the passenger side firewall a little cable moving back and forth the correct place where it goes is nearby and isnt anything out of this world to figure out

beastman@

Here's a photo of the dripping.



I still am unsure about the fan not coming on though. With a new fan switch it should kick on at some point no? The drivers side fan comes on, passenger side does not, do they run on the same switch?

Also, after letting the car idle for a few minutes, the idle RPM will move from 1700 down to 1000 and then back up. It does this about every 10 seconds or so. Any ideas?

40mpg_dx00

The switch by your thermostat is actually on the control side of the relay. Did you check the relay? try swapping it with another one from the fusebox. Also, the high side uses a different fuse than the control side. If the fuse, relay, switch, motor, and ground are good then you have computer problems. Hardwire the fan to check that it spins
Also, it looks like either your radiator is leaking or your hoses are shot

beastman@

Could you tell me which fuses to swap? I checked a couple of fuses that I thought might be related but they looked fine. Also, how do I hardwire the fan to test the motor?

I was planning on pulling the radiator to fix the leak/replace it. I started unclamping hoses... The small hose at the bottom on the drivers side of the radiator started spilling reddish liquid, what is that?

40mpg_dx00

The redness is from rust. Once you replace the rad you should try to flush as much of that out as you can.
There should be five fuses in a row by the firewall. The far right is your cooling fan(20A), the next is for your condenser fan(20A). The 4 relays toward the engine side should be interchangeable.
The easiest way to hardwire the motor is to pull your coolant reservoir, unplug the fan and take one wire from battery positive to the blue wire and then another to ground the black wire. If it spins the motor is fine.

beastman@

Ok cool. That's pretty disgusting. I thought it was tranny fluid or something. It looks like those two small hoses come from the tranny.

40mpg_dx00

I'm sorry. I overlooked the fact that you have an A/T. If there are four hoses on your radiator then the red fluid is from your tranny

40mpg_dx00

Your car may have had a transmission fluid cooler installed. I'm pretty sure you can pull the radiator without opening those lines.

94EG8

Or Dexcool.

The transmission cooler is part of the rad so no you can't pull it without disconnecting the lines.

To the OP, based on where the leak is i'd have to say the leak is coming from either the rad one of the rad hoses, at this point you've probably got some other issues though, aluminum engines don't take well to being overheated.

beastman@

After pulling those lines, and letting the tranny fluid flow out of them, it didn't seem to be much. How do I get the rest of the tranny fluid out?

94EG8

Drain the transmission, I've never really had to deal with an 6th gen automatic before so you're on your own for finding the drain plug.