I recently bought a 93 del sol and it ran fine for the first 3 weeks or so. One night I was driving and I looked down and the temp gauge was maxed out. I pulled over and the car immediately cooled down, which does not seem right to me. According to the gauge it dropped about 120 degrees in 10 seconds which isn't possible. So I replaced the engine coolant sensor that gives the reading to the gauge, I replaced the thermostat, I made sure all fans are working properly, I checked the water pump, it has a new radiator in it, and the water is circulating correctly. I feel scared to drive it even though I'm pretty sure it's not actually hot because it shouldn't be able to cool off that quick. Any help is appreciated!!!

 

For starters...

https://honda-tech.com/honda-civic-d...sting-3002401/

The stock gauge is horribly inaccurate, but as soon as it starts going up, you're overheating. Buy/borrow/rent a block tester and use it to make sure you didn't damage the motor overheating it so severely.

 

Are you sure it's actually overheating? I can be driving 45 mph and it will go almost to the top. I drop 5 mph and it goes down all the way to normal temperature. That doesn't sound right to me. Even if it was that hot it still shouldn't cool down that fast still running, should it?

 

As I said, the stock gauge is horribly inaccurate. It isn't actually cooling down as "fast" as you think it is, it's just dropping, say, 5 or 10 degrees, which is enough for the gauge to freak out about it. It's also enough to blow the engine. Since you have an OBD1 car, trying to get live data out of it for diagnostics is going to be a pain. If you really want to go down the "is it actually overheating" train of thought, get a digital coolant temperature gauge, and install it so you can actually see what the exact temperatures are.

Before you jump through all of those hoops, though, believe me when I say that the gauge is horribly inaccurate, and that you should start with a block tester.

 

I appreciate all the advice. I'll start with the tester and then the gauge if that proves okay. Thanks for the help.

 

Read the forum Rules sticky. Your thread title won't do here.