I noticed steam in my headlight beam literally a block away from home. I thought it was fog for a second, since it was warm out and had been raining all day. But I glanced at my cluster and noticed my temp gauge was 3/4 a few seconds later as i was pulling away. I panicked and put it in neutral and coasted down the hill and turned onto my street, then pulled in the driveway. As I pulled in, the gauge was 7/8 of the way to hot. I shut it off. It had been only like 60 seconds with the temp rising. Is it likely that I warped the head? When I opened the hood there was splatter marks from coolant on my chrome intake. The resevoir was empty, but the radiator cap was luke warm to the touch. Both upper and lower radiator hoses were hot. I squeezed both hoses, and i heard no bubbling noises. They also seemed pressurized.

I don't have a compression test kit.

It's also sprinkling outside and dark, and i don't have a garage. I was thinking of buying a new coolant hose kit and a new radiator, with new clamps, then seeing where i'm at. I don't make much money.

I would also like to point out i had been slowly leaking coolant around my distributor for a good long time. I usually topped it off and sometimes it wouldn't go away for awhile.

D16Z6, 5 speed. 147k miles. 95 Civic EX coupe.

 

This literally just happened to me earlier. Anyhow like you said, new radiator, hoses...if youve never changed it maybe do the tsat or clean your current one up. Id just check the obvious like the oil, make sure it doesnt blow white smoke or have a misfire when you get it going. I panicked and did a quick compression test on mine, but you mentioned you dont have that option

 

I think ur engine will be fine. I had this happen to my lexus. I had a crack in my radiator. I replaced it and everything was fine. No warped head or leaks. Just fix where ever the leak came from and u should be good.

 

Did you blast the heat? Always gotta blast the heat OP

 

When do i blast the heat? It's hot outside.

 

Definately too hot to blast the heat, not that it helps when theres no coolant in the system anyhow...i suppose if you got cold lol

 

You're allowed to roll the windows down.

 

Its a good instinctual habit to do when your temp rises. If there's literally no coolant in the radiator, engine, and hoses, it wont really help, but I doubt you lost 2 gallons of coolant in a minute.

turning on the heat sucks some more heat out of the engine. It makes the radiator's job easier.

 

throwing parts at it is a bad idea, especially if youre broke. check for coolant/oil mix, go to harbor freight and pick up a compression tester for around 10 bucks. diagnose the problem properly and save yourself money.

 

I think it may be a free rental at AutoZone.

 

5$ on crazyhouse2011 made a dumb troll thread. Wasn't he talking about how he spent all his money on a new engine anyway?

put the new engine in crazyhouse

edit*
your distributor shouldn't ever leak coolant. Oil, maybe, but coolant..?

 

Maybe crazy will verify coolant problem with engine bay pics.

 

Ron, your edit on my earlier post on crazyhouse's other thread me laugh.

 

What edit? Why would I edit a post by a model member?

 

If you were leaking coolant under the distributor than that smaller hose leading to your throttlebody is leaking, or the upper radiator hose is also leaking.. You can keep it ghetto all you want but those hoses need to be replaced............or just wait until you have a major problem and than officially do a rebuild.

 

and you changed it to

I laughed because of awesome grammar

 

My grammar was flawless. Note that gay can also be used as a noun:

 

Yep, as is a block tester - the only thing you have to pay for is the litmus chemical. Roughly $15 to completely and properly diagnose a head gasket.

The head gasket seals directly below the distributor. The throttle body is also near the distributor, with hoses running near and around it. It's entirely possible that there is a leak under the distributor, or near the distributor to a point where it would look like it's coming from the distributor.

PMB, since you seem to have missed the underlying tones...you should consider not posting, and going back to reading and learning. We all start somewhere, and as far as the tech section goes, you've jumped into the deep end when you should still be wearing waders.

 

perhaps, but I never did that before. I dont see a good reason to start now

 

Pics to come in the morning. Its all over the frame and steering rack area (directly below the intake pipe), it's on the tranny (a little). It's messy. Not like explosion messy buy you can tell coolant was being thrown around in there.

 

You need to thoroughly clean that area, refill your coolant, and while burping the system, use a LOT of dry towels to pinpoint exactly where the leak is coming from. You ran your car until you lost too much coolant, at which point your car lost it's ability to cool itself.

 

I was never sure of this, but if the level drops too far doesn't the sensor not get any temp reading at all? Or does it have a default of some sort where if it's not submerged it will shoot up to alert the driver?

 

The OEM temp sensor is horribly inaccurate. Also, as long as there's still some fluid in the system, it'll still throw some hot coolant on the sensor. Basically, no, it doesn't have a "default". From the sensor to the cluster, there's a lot of "close enough" that goes on, but that "close enough" really is good enough for an average driver.

The point is, the first thing you need to do is refill your coolant system, figure out where that leak is coming from, and fix it. The second thing you need to do is a block test, to make sure you didn't crack your head gasket in the process.

 

yup. I blew the coolant out of my engine for several minutes, and when i pulled the head off there was still coolant in it. The jackets barely had any missing too.

Its not easy to get all of the coolant out.

 

My car does that if I turn the heat on, because no heater core... LOL!