so my car was overheating after i installed a new radiator. i took the advice of a couple ht guys and opened up my radiator cap, turned the heat on full blast and let the air run itself out of my system. (about 10-15 min.) then i took the car out for a drive and it drove pretty good. i didn't redline but hit the gas pretty hard for a couple pulls. then, it started smelling like radiator fluid and i thought aww f*ck. so i went to pop the hood and it was leaking from the fluid resevoir. the thing looks like a piece of sh*t. but it seemed to work okay holding the fluid. the fluid looked like if overflowed from the resevoir because when i opened it to look in, it was pretty damn full. do i just have too much fluid in my system or what? kinda wierd cuz same thing happened before too. any advice is helpful advice (except for the negative ones.) so lmk!

 

Ever change you stat?

 

Did the engine overheat?

Did the new radiator come with a new cap? If not, you may have a faulty radiator cap.

Alternatively, you could have a bad head gasket.

 

Radiator Fluid??? Oh you mean ANTIFREEZE...

When you opened the hood, was the antifreeze to the top of the reservoir?

 

yeah. it was pretty much at the top, with some kinda overflowed onto whatever was around the resevoir.

 

yeah. was a shitty mishimoto radiator. cap doesn't seem to be leaking, but didnt' change out the thermostat and yeah. the car was OVERHEATING during higher load.

 

answers bump

 

answers bumpr

 

When you swapped out the radiator, did you reconnect the fan?

 

yeah. swapped and plugged in the new radiator fan. it seems to work fine.

 

You probably just overfilled your coolant reservoir. If your engine isn't overheating and was fine before the radiator swap, I wouldn't worry. The coolant (like most things) expands when it's hot, that's why you need the coolant reservoir. There are two lines on it, the hot level and cold level. If you had it filled past the cold line while the engine was cold, then some will overflow.

 

My money is on the T-Stat. Change it 2 see what happens. Its only about $10-15. It won't kill you to change it.

 

the thermostat is located where the upper radiator hose connects to the motor, correct? when you buy new thermostats, do they come with new o-rings too? j/w.

 

answes bump= yet again

 

Yes its comes with the gaskets..its an easy swap.

 

1.) why did you change your radiator to begin with? Was the car overheating with the original unit?

2.) what engine do you have and what state of modification is it in? Is it turbocharged?

3.) did the fluid seem to fill up only when under load or was the antifreeze overflowing when the car was warming up in your driveway?

 

i have a turbocharged b16a2 w/some supporting mods. yeah. the car was overheating before, thought the radiator wasn't efficient enough. maybe that wasn't it though now that i think about it. it would only fill up if it was under load. other than that, sitting in my driveway it seemed perfectly fine.

 

bump for my shitty civic

 

Sounds like a bad head gasket to me.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by touandcim &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">the thermostat is located where the upper radiator hose connects to the motor, correct? when you buy new thermostats, do they come with new o-rings too? j/w.</TD></TR></TABLE>

thermostat is located where LOWER radiator hose connects to the motor (just below the throttle body)

and radiator cap DOES NOT LEAK when it is in bad shape... it stucks and lets the coolent into the overflow tank but does not allow it to go back into the system...

And with your problem... could be a blown headgasket...

Change the thermostat first... it's cheap and you won't be mad if it doesn't solve your problem cos you won't spend much...

Also try with a new radiator cap... if you have a friend who drives the same car, tra borrowing it from him...

If that doesn't solve your problem then it is defintely the gasket...

if it is the gasket, take off the head resurface it and get a new OEM headgasket (cos "replacement" ones tend to go bad very very soon after installation)