i got a problem with my car. whenever its been running for a while. and its parked at idle. temp goes to hot... when i turn on the heater to high the needle goes back midway... i think its the thermostat. but my concern is. my car has done this on 3 motors my stock vx motor. y8 swap . and now gsr. so what do you guys think i should do . check the thermo first then maybe the wiring or sumthing?? my fan doesnt work by itself but i got a switch for it ..

 

definately chech thermo

 

the fan is not working, my did the same thing.

 

when do you turn your fan switch on? get a lower temperature thermostat.

 

i experienced that problem with my old car and it was a combination of things, the thermostat wasn't working and the fan switch was going bad.

 

ok ive done swaps and everything i feel like a noob for sayin this cause. i did my gsr swap myself . but i really dont know how to change the thermostat? is it on the motor itself or somewhere in the lines or sumthing if someone could show me a picture or anything i would appreciate . thanks alot for the info guys
bump for jersey!!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by civicrida3 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">ok ive done swaps and everything i feel like a noob for sayin this cause. i did my gsr swap myself . but i really dont know how to change the thermostat? is it on the motor itself or somewhere in the lines or sumthing if someone could show me a picture or anything i would appreciate . thanks alot for the info guys
bump for jersey!!</TD></TR></TABLE>

dont worry, you have to learn by experiencing things, it just cant magically pop up in your head right? gl

 

your fan might be blowing the wrong way. recheck the wires

 

just follow the upper radiator hose at the end of that is the thermostat housing under the distributor. your system needs to be bled first.

 

Get a new relay for your fan switch and call it a day. Oh, and I was part of your motor swapping too. Did you forget?

 

its not the fan . we wired to the switch so thats really not a factor. im thinking the thermo switch or w/e is bad. .

 

Thermostat isnt a switch, its a sensor... Its inside its own little eggshell housing. I HIGHLY doubt its the thermostat, your motor is new as hell. Considering your cluster is fucked up, I would take that into consideration first. NOW, go fix it, or I'm gonna kill ya, and kill ya quick!

 

Are you running straight water in the radiator? If so try a 70 percent antifreeze and 30 percent water mix. I know it is suppose to be 50/50 but antifreeze has a higher boiling point and wont evaporate as easily. Also I would put in another cluster in there and see what happens.

 

get a honda thermostat replace it. Are you running stock VX exhaust? This is very very rare but restrictive (like tiny or bent) exhaust will cause the engine to overheat.

 

a trick that i like to do is to boil the thermostat in some water and make sure that the thermostat opens and closes BEFORE you install it.

it usually takes a couple of boils before it will open and close (guess to work in the wax). that way, you know that the t stat is working before you go through all the hassles of putting the engine back together again and then finding out that the tstat may not be working.

 

thanks.
when i turn i on the heat in my car the needle drops back down to like midway. if its at idle and its getting hot. soun as i put the heat on it will drop. or when i start driving when its getting cool air..

 

Jesus there's some misinfo up in here.

First of all, you follow the LOWER radiator hose to the thermostat housing, not the upper hose as someone else stated.

Secondly the thermostat is not a sensor at all. It is a mechanical piece that opens and closes depennding upon the water tempurature - it is 100% mechanical and nothing electrical.

To check for thermostat operation, do this:

Crank the car and let it idle until the temp gauge is at the 1/2 point. Feel the upper radiator hose. It will be hot. Now feel the lower hose. If the lower hose isn't as hot (opr slightly cool to the touch) as the upper hose, then the thermostat isn't opening as it should. Very simple.

Also you probably have other problems working against you too.

Why is a fan hard wired to a switch? Your car should be fully capable of knowing when to turn the fan off and on if it's all working properly.

Here's what'd I'd do:

Replace the thermostat and gasket with an OE HONDA one. the part number will be a 19301-P08-306 and it can be found at Honda or Acura.

After replacing the thermostat crank the car and wait for the car to get up to operating temp. If the fans do not kick on as they should and the car begins to climb into the past 1/2 point on the temp guage, then you have some choices in terms of why the fans are not working. first of all unhook the ghetto switch and wire it back up like stock. If the fans don't cut on, the follwing could be wrong:

1. Blown fuse for main cooling fan
2. Bad relay for main cooling fan - to check simply grab another relay from another slot and swap it in and if they come on you know it's the relay
3. Bad thermal fan switch on the thermostat housing - costs like $30.00, or swap one in from another car/engine
4. The fan motor itself could be bad, but unlikely if hard wiring it makes it work

Also check the actual wires and plugs on the thermal fan switch and cooling fan because the plugs can go bad and cause overheating if they disable the fans.

I had my pal's 1994 Civic give me fits when it was overheating because his radiator was cracked, so we swapped it out thinking it would solve all of his problems. i also dropped a thermostat in too because it's cheap and easy while the coolant is already drained for the radiator job.

Well the ****** was still overheating. I checked the plug for the fan with a test light, and it was good. I swapped relays, but still nothing. I wiggled the plug on the thermal fan swith and the fans came on.

Turns out the plug for the thermal fan switch (located on the thermostat housing) was bad. I cut the wires and connected a plug from another engine harness and the problem was solved.

I would never hard wire a fan because I'd rather find the problem rather than put a band-aid on it. If you forget to hit the switch then you're risking damaging a very expensive engine bro.

Try that stuff and let us know what happens.

 

THANK THE LORD!!! I CAN'T BELIVE SOME OF THE THINGS ON HERE

DO WHAT HE SAID ...... oe t-stat , follow the lower coolant hose to the t-stat housing .. replace with new coolant 50/50 , "BURP" the system to make sure there are no air pockets in the system and run it ,

if it heats back up , you have either a relay problem , temp. sensor problem , and or a fan motor problem ( that would explain why when your not moving it gets hot because there is no cold air blowing on the motor or the radiator !!!!

" I WISH THAT PEOPLE WHO HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT WOULD NOT POST BECAUSE THATS HOW OTHER PEOPLES CARS GET FUCKED UP !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!

 

If you want a rough how-to on the thermostat (I never clicked the Auto-Zone link) I can post a how-to without pics since I have no home PC right now, thus no pics.

It's pretty simple.

 

do what was already mentioned, if your using your stock rad, you might also considering getting a dual core radiator.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by doublejz &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">do what was already mentioned, if your using your stock rad, you might also considering getting a dual core radiator.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I've used a stock-sized 1992 si radiator in my wife's 1992 SWi Hb with her B16A2 and it's never had overheating issues.

Ideally a dual-core Del Sol VTEC or 92-95 automatic Civic radiator or 94-01 Integra double wide (like I have in my B18C5 hatch) would be the ones to get, but the stock sized Civic single core is enough to handle the B18C1 engine and is probably NOT the culprit here.