timing belt, water pump was changed, and upon refilling, coolant will not bleed properly. we searched, and since we don't have a bleeder screw, we did the run w/o rad cap method. fans never came on, and car started getting hot, so we shut it down. we squeezed upper/lower rad hoses and coolant in rad doesn't go down. we know we lost at least a gallon when changing the water pump... coolant resevoir is on max as well. idle is fine as well, but we know the level is way down. whenever we try to put some in, it just bubbles back out.

thoughts?

 

My fans wouldn't come on either. Are you following the Helm procedure?

I basically ran the car for about 10 minutes with the heat set to hot, revved it to about 3000 rpm for 30 seconds, shut it off, and installed the cap. The overflow bottle was full. I then took it for a short drive. The temperature came up and I shut the car off and parked it. The next day, I checked the level in the radiator and adjusted the fill level in the overflow bottle. it has been fine ever since.

 

Yea, we figured it out.

First, we made sure the car wasn't hot. We put the coolant in at a steady rate with the rad cap off so it wouldn't overflow while the car was on. We squeezed the tubes to get the air bubbles out, and we let the car sit for about 35 minutes. It took a little while, but then the fans turned on once, turned off, then turned on again. After that, the car was fine

Kudos to thelate1 for amazing work!