I was wondering...whats' causing my car to build up pressure and blow coolant out the resivour? head gasket? radiator? well there's two hoses connected to the radiator and the top one is warm and is the bottom one suppose to be cold?

 

head gasket,but might have enough warp where you need to resurface head and block.for sure the head!

 

alright i'll check it...cause everyone's been telling me that both hoses should be warm...

 

It could be your thermostat is not opening that why the bottom hose is cold because the water from the radiator is not going into the engine and the top hose heat up but could not travel to the radiator. Check your thermostat.

 

radiator cap

 

it could be so many thing.. check the cap first. do the cap pressure test. then check the hose. then take off thermostat, and test if it works.

 

well the top hose is suposed to be hot and the bottome one is suposed to be warm not cold. check ur hoses if they are realy soft, if they are change em. then also change the radiator cap and thermostat since they are like 5$ each. also u just might have air in ur system. easy way to bleed it is jack the front all the way up so the radiator is at its highest point, and leave the cap off n keep toping it off with coolant. u should see it bubbling, if it is then theres air in the system. wait till it stops, but this could take about 20 min.

 

Could be a lot of things but check the simple stuff first. (cap, fans, thermostat, ect)

 

Heres some things to check and look for:

Thermostat: Stuck closed, will cause the coolant to never circulate and overheat the engine.

Fan: Not functioning, driving around town will not force enough air flow through the radiator to properly dissepate the heat.
Staying on, while driving on the highway will reverse the airflow actually slowing it down before it can get through the radiator fins.

Radiator: Plugged internally, no air flow.
Plugged externally, no air flow.

Hoses: Can implode from the inside making it unapperant looking at them externally.

Things stated that are not true so dont waste your time:
-Its not a head gasket cuz you would be buring coolant-creating white smoke
-Radiator cap would cause a leak if it was bad not hold pressure....thats what its supposed to do, lol.
-Warped head would cause to many problems to list, overheating isnt one of them.

Good luck

 

amen to that!

 

well...i've change the thermostat 2x's so it can't be that...my fan works good....so i'm sure it can't be that, umm...i took it in to a shop and the guy there checked it to see if i had a bad head gasket, but it showed up perfectly fine...so he siad its either my radiator or my water pump....one of those two....any suggestions? i'm thinking it could be the cap too....

 

Could be water pump or a clogged radiator. I dont know how to effectivley check these things though. Radiator is a easy fix but the water pump isnt as easy.

 

well im getting a new radiator in tomorrow so hopefully that's the problem..if not..then i'll try the water pump..but whoa...stressful when you don't know the problem...

 

I was under the distinct impression that a radiator cap could go bad and still not leak. Just as when you turn the cap like to the first locking point, isn't it suppose to relieve pressure but not leak? Maybe I am wrong. how many miles are on the car? Why did u just see about getting the radiator flushed instead of buying a new one? Did you go aftermarket?

 

Im pretty sure it would be the radiator if all those other things are good, when water pumps go bad they usually leak... ive never heard of a water pump causing an engine to overheat, but thats just me.

 

well i took it in to get a leak down test done...they said my head gasket is good...but their confused on why my fan won't work the right way..since i jumped it...weird..they aren't sure on whats causing it..they were talkin about the ac clutch or something like that being too hot which is over workin my motor they said. so I don't know......

 

forgot the car has 72,000 miles

 

if its not the thermostat it could be that the radiator cap is shot and its not holding the pressure so the antifreeze is flowing into your overfill tank. Or it might be a plugged hose or water galley in the head somewhere causing extreme pressure and that would overheat it too. Like other people say it could be a plugged radiator too. Good luck man

 

well..thanks guys...after all this it was a radiator cap...whoa...but yeah..changed the cap and everything starting workin the way it was again...thanks for all the advice guys....

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ForceFed_Motorsports &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Fan: Not functioning, driving around town will not force enough air flow through the radiator to properly dissepate the heat.
Staying on, while driving on the highway will reverse the airflow actually slowing it down before it can get through the radiator fins.
Things stated that are not true so dont waste your time:
-Its not a head gasket cuz you would be buring coolant-creating white smoke
-Radiator cap would cause a leak if it was bad not hold pressure....thats what its supposed to do, lol.
</TD></TR></TABLE>Weird when my head gasket blew I wasn't blowing any white smoke. I had a small combustion leak in my system and it would put air into my line causing my water pump to airate*sp and in turn pressurizing my system leaving my lower radiator hose cold as can be and my over flow well... over flowing. . Of course this combustion leak was only appearant under boost. But it does happen FYI.
If the fan wasn't working then the lower radiator hose would be hot as hell because all the coolant would be hot as hell.
If the radiator cap wasn't holding pressure the water would vaporize. And vapors could escape into the overflow and cool down. Doesn't usually have signs of a leak though. That doesn't explain the cold lower hose though.
It's either an air pocket in there/ water pump not working properly(or at all) thermostat stuck or some sort of blockage in the cooling system.


Burp the system. If that doesn't help then change the thermostat or check it. I'm guessing you're thermostat is what the problem is though.

 

alright!! Glad to here it worked for you!

 

another problem..well now my car doesn't overflow anymore, but my two hoses from my radiator are awfully tight...like there's just hella pressure in there....i don't know what's wrong..