Hello

I'm recently bought a 1990 Civic LX Automatic that I plan to use as our daily driver. The car overheats only when I accelerate (2K-3K RPMS) and the temperature needle slowly comes down when I let go of the gas peddle. I have searched for a solution on here, but the topics I found were either not my situation, or abandoned threads that did not give a fix or solution.


What I have done today is take the thermostat out to rule it out as being bad (closed). The heater works, blows hot air. I have no leaks from any hoses as I have gone through them all. When the car does get hot, the reservoir tank starts to boil.

There is no oil in my coolant and no coolant in my oil. ( Did a oil change today). So I am hoping it is not the head gasket. I am thinking maybe it is the water pump or I am not bleeding my cooling system correctly. What is the proper way to bleed my cooling system?? Also, how do I check my water pump?


Also once it heats up, ( I never let it reach the red area), it is very hard to start. I even prime it 4-6 times and I still can't start it. If I crank it a couple of hours later it will start fine.

Any help is very greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by honda.lioness &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

The two facts above by themselves make the head gasket highly suspect, I am afraid. I doubt that's boiling but instead exhaust gases dumping into the reservoir. Check for the other symptoms listed at http://honda.lioness.googlepages.com/buyingused .</TD></TR></TABLE>


Also I have a BAD exhaust leak somewhere after the exhaust manifold, but this would not cause over heating or trouble starting up would it??

I bought the car for $900, so I was expecting some sort of mechanical work being needed. I am not a pro mechanic, but I can follow instructions very well and im not scared to dig in.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by honda.lioness &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

No it shouldn't.

A new head gasket would cost around $1000 to fix at the dealer's. If the engine is otherwise in good shape, you're doing all right. Lots of folks DIY the head gaskets, but I'd say it is an advanced project. Plenty of help here at honda-tech.com is archived for DIY-ers, should you try it on your own. Meanwhile, try hard to keep the temperature as low as possible. A frequent complicating condition of a blown head gasket is warping the cylinder head, in which case machining is required. Good luck!

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Well I am not driving the car as of yet until I fix the problem, I have another vehicle for this and I do not bigger damage to happen to it. I would never think of taking the car to a Honda dealer to get fixed, I would try it on my own first. Worst case senerio would be I just drop another engine in there since the D15B2 are relatively cheap. It would be a great learning experience for me really. On problems like these, I really dont like to think that I am paying to get repairs done. I like to think of it as investing in knowledge since you always learn something new in the process, and once you learn it, it will stick with you forever.

I will be searching on here on how to bleed the cooling system properly.

 

does the fan switch turn on and if does is it longer than 5 seconds?? most likely its not the head gasket, also how many miles are on this car

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by typrdb8 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">does the fan switch turn on and if does is it longer than 5 seconds?? most likely its not the head gasket, also how many miles are on this car </TD></TR></TABLE>

Yes, the fans turn on, if I turn to car off and turn the key to the II mark the fans continue to work with the car off if it is above normal temperature. The odometer reads 218K miles. As stated before, I bought the car cheap knowing that I might have to do some mechanical work to it, so I am not scared to jump in.