Well, on top of all my little issues over the last two days, I think I might have a big one. I go out to my car tonite to check my oil, antifreeze, blah blah blah, and notice that my coolant reservoir is at the full mark. I just recently replaced my radiator and thermostat and my water pump and all hoses are good to go. I'm not blowing white smoke out the exhaust and my oil doesn't have any foamy look to it. No performance loss or anything. When I checked it last time, because of my thermostat problems, the reservoir would be at full when fully warmed up and it would go back down to minimum when turned off after an hour. That's the way it's supposed to be. But now the engine isn't sucking in the coolant from the reservoir back in and it's starting to worry me. Should I go shopping for a new headgasket? My compression numbers two weeks ago were at 235 across all four with the raise in pressure equal among them with the same amount of cranks. I just don't want to mess up my brand new radiator or worse, my engine. The car has never overheated and is constantly in the middle of the temperature gauge, I'm at a loss. Oh, and my vacuum gauge is reading at -21 at idle.

 

good night bump

 

dude quit worrying and check for other symptoms. do another compression check, check to see if you've got carbon floating around in your radiator or resovior, check the smell of your exhaust to see if it has a sweet smell to it or if there's an excessive amount of moisture being expelled from your exhaust, take valve cover off to see if there's milky residue, do a leak down test. these are all things that you could do to help detect a blown or leaking headgasket.

 

dude, I did that. I checked the coolant and it is only coolant, nothing floating in it. I put my nose to the exhaust pipe and smelled fuel, not coolant. Once the car is warm not a hint of smoke comes out. I looked at the oil cap right away after running the car for a while and there is nothing on the cap. There's is nothing on the dipstick either. Only thing I haven't done is a leak down and that's cause I cant find a place here in the bronx that does them. The compression test I can do myself but I want to make sure that the leakdown test is done right.

 

from what i understand, it doesnt sound like the headgasket. the hg went on my legend like 2 years ago, big sign was the temp gauge going to full hot, then back to the middle... and the heater didnt blow hot air.

 

bump

 

See, and with mine, it never overheats, needle stays in the middle once warmed up, even when I beat on it on a 90 degree day. And the hot air is blazing.

 

Well, I was mulling over everything and decided to check my coolant level tonite before going to work in the morning. The car was already sitting for three hours so I decided to go at it. The reservoir tank was past full this time, so I take off the cap of the radiator and it is a little low. I replenish the radiator with the coolant inside the reservoir and notice that its still past the full mark. So it comes to me that maybe I should squeeze the upper hose just in case there was air there. Well wadda ya know, mad bubbles came out of the filler neck. So I kept doing it and bubbles just kept coming out and I got tired of that and decided to loosen the little bleeder bolt at the head of the engine. All I heard was a hiss coming out, then sputtering, the bubbly coolant coming out and finally, a solid stream. Damn, I had that much air in the cooling system? So after tightening the bleeder bolt I top off the radiator with the remainder of the coolant from the reservoir and onced topped off the reservoir was a little above the minimum line so I just emptied enough out the reservoir to be slightly above the minimum line since the engine was cold.

The new question being, would air in the coolant system make the engine not suck coolant back in to the engine when it cools off the way its supposed to? If so, then I don't have to worry about the headgasket, lol.

 

UPDATE!

When I parked the car this morning, after getting to work, the coolant was just under the max line. I just came from my smoke break, three hours after parking the car and it is still slightly under the max line. I should also mention that since my last radiator cap was slightly leaking that I bought a new 1.1 oem style cap from autozone 2 weeks ago. I think the cap might be defective because I push on the spring loaded plunger and it almost seems to stick before opening and closing. I know there is supposed to be some resistance, but not this clicking sticking noise and feeling that I'm getting. Soooo, I sent my girl to get me an oem dealer cap that was actually meant for nippon denso radiators. Lets see if that helps with the coolant going back in to the engine when it cools off.

Any other help would be grat also guys, keem em coming.

 

well it looks as though when you changed your radiator and all the other accessories that you didn't 'bleed' your coolent lines correctly. after you installed all the cooling parts did you fill your radiator and start the car, letting your water pump suck up the coolent and keep on filling the radiator till it was full? then idle your car with the cap half way closed to let excess air flow into the resevoir...let it cool down and add more coolent?

 

this is kind of the same problem that i have rite now...my temp gauge would be at the middle and then start to go past the middle when im at idle...then it would drop back down again when i start moving. my coolant reserve tank would also get full too. this has been leaving me clueless for a couple of months

 

I would change the thermostat and do a coolant flush and replace all hoses. That's the cheapest method. If your symptoms still continue then just save yourself the hassle and get the head removed and change your headgasket. My gasket blew this last saturday and it made my third cylinder crack. Luckily my mechanic had a spare block and i put in new oem pistons and rings and she's good to go now. I got a great deal because my mechanic knows me for like 20 years and that was 1300 dollars. If I had known, then I would have changed the head gasket and only paid 350 for the work. I paid and extra 950 because no one knew what to tell me. Just do it man, you won't regret it.