ok well my h23a1 has been over heating on me like crazy for the past week. the first sign of it was in traffic when the gauge was all the way into the red. i checked the fluid and it was bone dry which led me to believe it was a leak in the radiator or head gasket. went n got pressure tested it n everything is sealed not a single leak. wtf! anyways so my next thought was ok maybe its the thermostat and the spring isnt releasing when the engine gets hot. nope, its still over heating. the wierd part tho is that its perfectly fine on the city runs perfect. but once i get it on the highway runnin at 65mph at a constant 3k rpm it gets hot. threw me off at first bc with all the air being pushed into the engine i thought it would stay cool. so now im down to pretty much either it being a bad radiator or water pump. the fans are kicking on like they should and everything and even have been running for an additional 5-10 min after turning the car off. the only way i know of checking the rad to see if its working right is to take the cap off and start the car n see if the coolant starts flowing. but i think the last time i did that the coolant just started to overflow and i put the cap back on, would this mean that its probabl clogged and time for a new radiator?? idk iv been soooo stumped all week and i think iv narrowed it down to these two options, i jus dont wanna spend more money tryin to fix whats not broken ya kno?

dam that was a long post. lol, if u need additional info lemme know and ill try n give u what u need. thanks a lot 4 those who spent the time to read through and comment. i appreciate it.

 

bad water pump?

 

is the fan turning on?

 

easy way to check radiator.
Remove AC and Radiator fan, after the car heats up, feel the radiator with your hand, make sure all of its warm, if some is cool or cold, you rradiator is clogged, get anew one.

water pump? when your car heats up, does your top radiator hose get hot? if so your pump/thermostat is most likely in working condition.

 

no offense, but why bother to post without reading

 

yea the hose gets hot. id rather have it be a bad radiator bc i can get one of those pretty cheap and its a hell of a lot easier to replace than a water pump. my one question tho is if the coolant starts to just over flow out of the radiator cap when i take it off and start the car wouldnt that mean its clogged? its suppose to just flow through i thought.

thanks!