This started a few days ago, I started seeing steam coming from under the hood. I thought the resevoir cap was lose, so I tightened it, and got the car home. Next morning, I'm driving to work, when I hear this "POP" and all this water and steam came out from under the hood. Turns out the hose that goes to the radiator up on top came loose. So I replaced the clamp and reattached it, then refilled the radiator with 50/50 radiator fluid. I let the car run and idle for about 20 minutes without a hitch, but once I got on the road again, same thing again.

Everytime I stop the car and pop the rad cap, it seems like all the fluid's gone, but I can't find any signs of leakage anywhere on any of the hoses. Also, the car doesn't seem to do this when idling, and for the most part the car's still running great, even when steaming from under the hood. Any ideas on what could be causing this? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

Bump...

 

Wow, not sure, my gsr mysteriously looses coolant as well. How many miles on your engine, mine smokes and has high mileage

 

I have a 96 gsr and i had to replace the radiator this summer due to a leak. It took me actually replacing and getting it out of the car to see where it was leak was. It was actually the fins breaking apart, so it wasn't a very fast leak. but every few day i would have to add more coolant. I would just replace the radiator if you haven't done that yet, stock ones are cheap and it's an easy DIY, i got a mishimoto and for the price you can't go wrong.

 

I think I have an extra one at the pad, I'll try that. Any chance it could be the thermostat?

 

excessive pressure on the upper hose is a good sign of a stuck t-stat if its doing it see if cranking the heat on high helps any. the heater core bypasses the t-stat and housing all together


*also my 95 gsr seems to lose coolant mysteriously as well. new radiator and hoses all around and still cant find it. no oil in water though. (might want to check yours

 

check the thermostat

 

seriously im a mechanic i cant tell you the problem unless i check it out. but i suggest if that car is your daily, then get a new radiator and new hoses. while your at it might as well change the thermostat and gasket, and water pump as well. just do it all at once and get it over with.

 

Funny thing about the heater is when the car was cool and I'd turn it on, it would blow hot, but once it started steaming, the hot air turned cold. This means the cooling system's empty, right?

 

You might of not put enough fluid in the radiator that's why it seems low after the thermostat opened during driving conditions. Did you fill the radiator up and leave the cap off and let it idle until the thermostat opened and filled more fluid into the radiator?

 

But if its overheating it possible that the thermostat is bad and its not opening up on time..just replace it with oem honda and see if it fixes your problem.

 

How about bleeding the system?

 

The only time I done that was when I flushed out my radiator and there was air in the system which made my car idle weird for some reason. His problem is overheating I doubt bleeding will resolve it, but good call.

 

Correct me im wrong but in order to diagnose a faulty thermostat is to feel the upper and lower hose and check if one is cooler than the other?
Not too sure.

 

yea but that only works if you catch it at just the right time. once the heat transfers through the radiator to the bottom hose its too hard to tell because the bottom one is going to always be cooler because it passes through the radiator before it gets to that hose

 

I'm going to pick up the t-stat in a little bit, hopefully I can replace it tonight and I'll keep y'all posted by tomorrow. Thanks again to everyone who's pitched in. I guess if that's not the fix, I'm gonna try another radiator that I have in the closet collecting dust. We'll see....

 

First of all, I wanna thank everybody who helped out with my little problem. Turns out it was the thermostat. I removed the old one yesterday, replaced it, refilled the rad fluid, and let the car warm up, and after taking a while to warm up, it finally did. The fluid started flowing, the fans came on, and now everything seems fine. I've been driving it since yesterday on both the street and freeway with no problems. Thanks again.