ok every now and again the temp. needle starts to climb . . . I rev it up a little bit and it goes down , never gets anywhere near being to hot . . . the overflow seems to always be empty. . .well tonight it climbed pretty high. . . i turned the heat on and it went down . . then I let it cool down and the rad. seemed like it was pretty low. . I added anti freeze and then it drove it and seemed fine. . . ??? I have no idea , seemed like a thermo issue but now im not so sure because it seems like it might be either using coolent or leaking it. . . have noticed small amounts under the car but not sure if its just a little bit I spilled filling it. . . car has a full-race pwr rad. and a fan switch wired up which I always use. . . any ideas???

 

Sounds like a headgasket

 

yeah thats what I was hoping it wasnt. . . I meen I also think it could be poss. be a leak somewhere. . . I can drive it for a week and the needle wont move. . it goes in spells

 

i concur. pressurize the cylinders with a cylinder leakdown tester. if you see air bubbles appearing and escaping out of the radiator fill neck then you know pretty difinitively its a head gasket. you could also have the radiator fluid tested for the presence of hydrocarbons. if nothing ends up saying its the hg, then maybe you are simply leaking it out slowly. in which case you need to find wherever its leakin from.

 

well I started the car with the radiator cap off and revd it up a little and added water as I added the water it would slowly go down . . but eventually became full ?? I let the car sit and idle for about 5 - 6 min and didnt overheat at all??

 

check the hoses rad rad-cap then assume its internal or a hg

 

could it possibly be a water pump thats just wearing out? might leak out of it too.

 

Pull your dipstick out and see if your oil looks milky like a poop color lol. It could also be your water pump. BTW, you shouldn't be running tap water as coolant. It'll cause electrolosis in your water lines and what not. If your going to run water as coolant, run distilled water as it's not "hard" water its "calm" water. Do a pressure test on your coolant system. They are like 15 dollar pumps at autozone or whatever auto parts store you have near you and put it on your radiator where the rad cap goes and pump it to about 13psi, about the same amount of pressure your cooling system has when the car is running and at optimal temp.

 

There is one problem there... Anti Freeze is so your coolant will not freeze... Have you checked to see if your thermostat is sticking? Radiator might be partially clogged with something too. If not you need to do a pressure test, only way to figure out what is causing it.

 

theres other ways of checking besides this way

 

well update , I drove the car on a 2 hour trip today . . . car did not overheat once?????

 

Craftsman and a bunch of other places make a coolant system pressure tester.. you might pick one up and pressurize your system when it is cold to see if it is leaking out anywhere.

 

never burped your car?