Hey everyone,
My car is doing some ridiculous things.
It started over heating. Removed the thermostat, I suspected it was the culprit, so, as a test, I removed the centre section.
The car no longer overheats while driving. I mean, I have flogged the poor bastard. We're talking half an hour of redline pulls and lugging in fifth gear up the longest hill possible repeatedly. Normal temp.
Today, sitting in stop and go traffic, the needle started to rise. All that was needed was to keep the car moving at walking speed or above, and the needle would fall again.
I seem to lose about 2 cups of water a day after about 160km or 100 miles.
Do not want to warp the head or blow a rad.
Really appreciate any ideas or suggestions...


Modified by rattletrap at 4:26 AM 6/19/2003

 

Are the fans working?

 

Yup, fan will kick on...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Mohudsolo &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Are the fans working?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Yeah, that was my first thought.

 

You might have a leaky head gasket. This happend to me.

Check your raditor to see if it is pressurized after your car has completely cooled. down. If there is still pressure then you've got some kinda of combustion leakage going into your cooling system.

 

I was thinking the head gasket as well, that is why I lugged it in fifth. Previously, when I had a bad head gasket, that would immediately make it overheat.
Not the case this time.
After the car has cooled down, there is no pressure.
If the car is still hot, and I take the rad cap off (slowly, I'm not a retard) it does seem to relieve pressure through the overflow.

 

OK, just got back from the garage and have a couple of new things.
Yanked the plugs, no residue or cakey white ****.
Yanked the valve cover, no spooge from coolant mixing with oil.
WTF?!!!
Appreciate the feedback thus far...

 

The motor could have overheated from for example: thermostat sticking closed and it got hot for an instant and blew a very small hole in the head gasket and then unstuck but you didn't notice until it ran out of water and warmed up longer for you to catch it. A lot of times you can remove the radiator cap and start the car and if the bubbling doesn't stop that's usually a sign. But it sounds like it's using water. If you leave out the thermostat the water doesn't sit in the radiator long enough to cool because it is constantly circulating so you have to go slap the car down the street to get enough air across the radiator. My 2 cents

 

I agree about the thermostat. A replacement is going in tomorrow night.
Now, if there was combustion pressure reaching the coolant, you would think that coolant would also reach the chamber. No?
No white smoke or chalky plugs. Only a loss of coolant through the overflow.
OK, fuggit, I guess I will be throwing a new head gasket in there tomorrow night as well.
Thanks guys...

 

I had a car (Supra) that would get hot and spit water out on the ground. It used water but it burned it so slow that you couldn't see it. You would only know that it needed water by the temp going up. Also, a trick you can do is take a mirror and with the car running put put it behind the muffler (the car must be at normal temp). If you are burning water the mirror will fog up, otherwise on a normal situation it should not.
Anyway good luck.

 

are you using water or anti-freeze/coolant?

t..

 

Aren't the byproducts of (complete) combustion H2O and CO2? It was my belief that exhaust should have water in it no matter what - or is it somehow transformed by the cat? Please correct me if this is wrong, I'm still learning