whats up everyone...my name is randy..from canton ohio...and have a 93 accord.....

can someone help with this weird problem?

replaced.......all three sensors....and...thermostat

water pump seems to be ok....

when driving....it heats up.....then overheats after about 10 mins..and fluctuates...up and down...

i was told all these things..nothing seems to be helping..oh ya...fans are turning on....

do i have a bad radiator....water pump...(no leaks).....head gasket(seems to be dry)...or worse yet..cracked head???

anything can help!! please!!


thanks guys...nice to be aboard! and hopefully i can add some help too!!

car is here.... http://www.xpracing.com/randyaccord

 

next time you park your car after you drive, check the antifreeze level,
i have a bad head gasket on my old acura and i replaced like two of those
thermostats before finding out what's wrong.
and yeah, welcome

 

yep...i have changed the fluid like 4 times now....its good

 

its a long shot but let your car run for alittle while with the radiator cap off. You may have air in the system which can cause overheating. Worth a try and its free

 

sounds like either a bad water pump or a radiator to check your head gasket do a compression check and also you can take your oil cap off and look at it and see if you have a cofee looking film on it if you do then you probally have a bad head gasket when the car is running look in the radiator and see if there is any bubbles coming up if there is then a good chance the head gasket is gone ...

 

gosh..i shoulda been more detailed....i DOOOOO appreciate the responses so far...but there is a small bleeder screw in the inlet housing..i already bled it out..but tomorrow morning..ill give that a shot...let it get really hot again.....with the cap off...good point man..thank you!

-randy-

 

Hi Randy,
I'm from Youngstown. If you have replaced all that other stuff. I would take a serious look at your headgasket. Do you notice any steam coming out of your exhaust? Loss of power?

 

Basic stuff -- probably you already checked these out.

I usually have to make sure the heater temperature control is on full-hot so air doesn't hang out in the heater core. Then open the bleed screw again after running awhile because I always get a little more air...

How good is your radiator? How long since the last coolant change (before the 4 times you just did)? If you run with the cap off, take a good look to see if there's crud inside it. They don't have to leak to be bad; it might just be plugged up with crud. Since your fans run & it still gets hot, that sounds like a plugged radiator. Maybe some SuperFlush might work?? How clean was the t-stat housing when you changed that stuff?

Oh yeah - don't use tap water (I live nearby, so I know). You can get distilled at WalMart for way cheaper than a new radiator...

 

ah ya...good point on the heater coer......i didnt even think about that...thanx man....it seems to be doing better.....we have really good watger here...it isnt from the well...so im not scared haha.....thanks guys!

 

D'ya think that NorthCanton gets their water from the moon or something? I believe the wellfield is somewhere near WalshUniv...

Minerals in the water are good for drinking - not good for radiators.

BTW... Nice car! I looked at the pics.



[Modified by JimBlake, 2:47 PM 3/28/2003]

 

damn, this is weird, same exact thing is happenin to my car rite now. i changed the coolant last nite and the its idling normal now but still heatin up liek no other. like after 10 min, its on the h. i have no idea what to do. ive read some of the posts but dont really no what yall are talkin bout, haha. please help. ill post a new topic if need be.

edit: and jimblake, what this superflush u talk bout?


[Modified by accordfreak93, 12:36 PM 3/29/2003]

 

With the car running and warm open this bleeder to let the air out of the system.



I promise if you had a hose off and didnt do this it WILL run hot.

Opening this will spit and sputter coolant/air out. Open/Close every 10 seconds or so until it quits sputtering (4 or 5 times).

 

Prestone SuperFlush or something like that. Yellow plastic bottle, about a pint. It's supposed to dissolve calcium & scale inside your cooling system. K-mart & WalMart & carparts stores have it. It's been years since I've used it but it goes like this...
Drain your radiator. Fill with water & add SuperFlush. Run till hot. Cool & drain. More water to rinse the system out - repeat rinse & drain ?? times. Fill with 50/50 coolant.

It's probably diluted phosphoric acid or something like that. If your radiator is really bad, be prepared for it to start leaking now & you'll have to replace it anyway.

I've always used distilled water because the corrosion & water chemistry gurus at work tell me not to use tap water. For 80 cents a gallon I just don't have to worry about what's in the water. I'm a heat-transfer quy, not a corrosion expert.

Here comes more information than you wanted...
Your car has 3 temperature sensors along with the thermostat. One is just for the dashboard gauge. One tells the ECU how warm the engine is. One is just a switch to turn on the radiator fans. They don't 'share' the same sensor. Any or all of these sensors can get coated with calcium scale which cause their sensing element to be colder than the actual coolant temperature. Of course, any of them can fail, too, even if they're clean.

Your car should normally get hotter idling than it does driving. Driving 50 mph pushes more air thru your radiator than the fans can, anyway. Your fans don't turn on till the coolant gets a little hotter than normal. When you're driving there's plenty of air going thru your radiator anyway so the thermostat controls the temperature. That's wgy the fan switch should have a higher setpoint than your thermostat, so your fans aren't running all the time when they're not needed.

If there's lots of crud in your engine's coolant passageways, then the heat can't get from the metal to the coolant as fast as it should. But you won't be able to know about this since the coolant doesn't actually get hot.

If your thermostat sticks closed, then the coolant in your engine gets hot, but the t-stat doesn't send much of it to the radiator to cool off. When this happens I think your temperature gauge gets hot but your fans don't turn on? I guess that depends on exactly where the dash gauge sensor is located.

If there's crud in your radiator, then it can't cool off the coolant as much as it should. Then the coolant stays hot even when the fans are running. Sometimes one or more tubes in the radiator actually get plugged. If you could measure temperature at different locations on your radiator you'd see some hot & some cold places. The radiator can still look shiny clean & new on the outside.

 

Hey, Stripped Honda...

Does the film you refer to look like this (I smeared my finger through it):



If so, then a blown head gasket is the answer to my brother's overheating as well (91 Accord EX). We replaced the thermostat, the radiator, removed the thermostat... everything except replace the water pump (which only has about 50,000 miles on it. Car still runs hot. Weird thing is that with the bottom radiator hose never gets hot. run the car without the radiator cap and it starts to boil and spit like crazy. Rev the car and you shoot coolant miles high

Lemme what you think of the film shown in this pic.

Thanks,

Nicholas



[Modified by genyosai, 12:53 AM 4/1/2003]

 

well, I'm having the same problem...I think it's my fans though...here is what i have tried:

- New radiator
- New Honda Thermostat
- Flushed the system with that cleaning stuff
- checked to make sure the system doesn't have air and is full.

Thank god I have the Autometer water temp gauge because the Honda one doesn't move until the water temp gets to 250 on the Autometer gauge. Granted one is measuring the water temp going into the motor and the other is measuring the temp coming out of the motor.

HERE IS MY PROBLEM:

The fan on the drivers side does not turn on like it used to when the car got hot, but when i turn on the A/C BOTH fans come on ONLY when the A/C is on. So I usually ride around with the A/C on fresh hot. That's working for me now because it's winter, but summer here in Texas is going to kill me...

Is there a fan relay or something that could be out causing that fan not to kick on?

Thanks!

 

there is a separate temperture switch for that fan. on the F23 it's located on the thermostat housing, f22 is probably the same.

 

seems right, i would check your antifreeze. it happened to my friend with a 94 ex. ya, welcome to our h-t family. watch out for crazydrew. heh, just messing drew.