I have a 88 4door dx that i just swapped a sohc zc in. Now my problem is that my temp gauge doesn't move, my fan never turns on and my top rad hose is warm and the bottem one is cold.

After i've driven for a while the car smells like its too hot but i'm not sure.

can someone help me fix all these problems.

 

obviously a problem with the thermostat.

 

thermostat. The weird thing is that if it were bad it would be the opposite. Thermostats are designed to fail open. So you need to take the thermostat housing out and double check it.

 

well it did the same thing before i did the swap and that was with a brand new thermostat. But if thats what you really think it is i'll go get a new one.

 

kinda soundsl ike you put the thermostat in backwards... just double check that
... also sounds like you might have a problem with your coolant temp sensor i would check that too...


Modified by jaydeum4lyfe at 11:52 AM 12/18/2005

 

does the thermostat even go in backwards? i'm going to check it anyway, with a new one at hand just in case. How can you tell if it needs to be replaced (the thermostat)

Where is the coolent temp sensor and is there a test i can do to check it? or should i just go buy a new one and replace it?

 

test

 

ok, so if the same thing happened before and after the swap, that means two different sensors were used, unless the gauge worked before the swap. if the motor is overheating after you changed the thermostat AND the motor, then i would say it's probably a plugged radiator. try to flush the radiator. unless you have a new radiator. as for the gauge not working, try changing the sensor for the gauge, but you might have to check to see if maybe the gauge itself isn't being grounded properly or something (going back to having two different motors in the car and you say you don't know where that sensor is tells me it's either not plugged in, or you didn't change it, so that's two sensors doing the same thing???) anyway, i don't think it's your thermostat. i'd lean more towards the radiator being plugged, or possibly the water pump isn't circulating the coolant? lots of things to check. good luck.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by hatchblack &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">ok, so if the same thing happened before and after the swap, that means two different sensors were used, unless the gauge worked before the swap. if the motor is overheating after you changed the thermostat AND the motor, then i would say it's probably a plugged radiator. try to flush the radiator. unless you have a new radiator. as for the gauge not working, try changing the sensor for the gauge, but you might have to check to see if maybe the gauge itself isn't being grounded properly or something (going back to having two different motors in the car and you say you don't know where that sensor is tells me it's either not plugged in, or you didn't change it, so that's two sensors doing the same thing???) anyway, i don't think it's your thermostat. i'd lean more towards the radiator being plugged, or possibly the water pump isn't circulating the coolant? lots of things to check. good luck.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Ok i know my rad isn't plugged because while i had it out i took a hose and flushed it out from every hole until the water came out clear. (boy did some nasty looking stuff come out.)

Now for the water pump not circulating coolent i don't think thats the problem. its a new pump that i had to do the seal on twice because it slipped the first time and pinched it, thus causing a leak.

It there anything that causes the thermostat to open that could fail? because all the hoses get warm but the one from the bottom of the rad to the thermostat housing.

I'm going to double check the thermostat tomorrow. what will happen if i just don't have a thermostat in there?

 

if you are going to check your thermostat, just boil some water. put the thermostat in the water, and when it gets to 170 degrees (or whatever the temp rating is of your thermostat) the thermostat should open. if the stat doesn't open, it's no good. if it opens, you have another problem. if you run the car without the thermostat, you might have problems with the coolant sensors triggering your check engine light because your motor isn't warming up properly. i ran into that when i took mine out, but i am also running obd1 with a z6 motor, so it might be different. i never tried running my other motor without a thermostat.

 

so i swapped my thermostat today and my spark plugs while i was at it. Old thermostat was fine (i boiled it...then noticed it was pretty clean so i put some lemon juice in there and cleaned it up a little and i'm going to return my old one in the new one's box )

Took it for a test drive and it just died on me twice, with this buzzing noise and the CEL blinking super fast as if it were buzzing. Looked at my ecu and the light is solid. NOW WHAT????????