HELP! Overheating

Maryland Stang

Active Member
Aug 21, 2002
1,656
29
39
Greenville, NC
Hey All,

Over the winter I did a H/C/I project on my 82,000 mile stock block 92 5.0. The mods are listed in my sig.

When I first started the car it was overheating and continued to push the antifreeze back out of the cooling system.

I did everything.

Jack the left side of the car up when filling.

Replaced the t-stat and tested both t-stats in boiling water to confirm they are opening.

Removed the temp sensor to check for an air pocket.

Replaced the temp sensor.

The radiator is a large Granatelli Aluminum that is very clean inside and flowing very well.

The rad cap is confirmed 16 pounds.

The water pump is a Jegs high flow and is in very good shape.

The heater and bypass hoses are in great shape and hooked up properly.

The head gaskets are on properly and the tabs are sticking out of the front of the engine.

I did a compression test yesterday and the results were from 155 to 165.

Okay, back to the problem. It overheated about 6 times until I took it to the shop that worked my cylinder heads. They saw what it was doing and got an infrared thermometer out and just as they did that the t-stat finally decided to open. He took a reading on the water neck and it was right at 190. The t-stat is rated at 195.

He told me not to fill the rad all of the way up. He said that he had seen cars that don't like to have the rad filled all of the way up and to just watch it for a while.

At that point the overflow tank was filled but the rad was down so I went on down the road and everything was fine. Over the last couple of weeks the car has been fine. I have driven it all over the place with no problems but little by little the cooling system was pulling the antifreeze out of the overflow tank back into the cooling system.

I checked the level in the rad one day last week and the rad was filled and the overflow tank was down to the Full Cold mark. I thought to myself that the system had worked it's problems out and everything was fine.

Yesterday I was going for a short ride (5 miles to town and back) and it started overheating and blowing the antifreeze out again. That's when I saw another mechanic with 35 years of experience and he said it was the head gaskets and told me to check the compression. Like I said above the test came up from 155 to 165.

There is no antifreeze in the oil and no steam coming out of the exhaust.

I thought about removing the t-stat all together and see what it does. I know it will probably take a while to get warm but I have to do something here. I was also considering drilling a 1/4" hole in one of the t-stats and see what that does.

Any thoughts or suggestions?
 
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When you say overheating, are you assumming it's overheating because it's spitting antifreeze or is the gauge going way up? Also is the antifreeze "spitting" out of the radiator and not going into the overflow? Just trying to clarify.
 
Also, are you putting the themostat in backwards, is your water pump the right rotation or is your water pump spinning the wrong way because of ''custom'' belt routing? I know they might sound like stupid questions, but its hard to tell when you're not there.

I had problems with a warped radiator cap flange, I kept replacing the caps and they would eventually warp too.
 
When you say overheating, are you assumming it's overheating because it's spitting antifreeze or is the gauge going way up? Also is the antifreeze "spitting" out of the radiator and not going into the overflow? Just trying to clarify.

The antifreeze is filling the overflow tank. Once it fills the tank it is coming out all over the place. It puked out almost a gallon Friday. The gauge is almost pegging when it does this. When it's not over heating the gauge hangs around the middle to 5/8 of the way up the gauge.

93notchback said:
its sounds like you have a head gasket on backwards. it will still have good compression, it just blocks the coolant passages because one end of the gasket isnt open.

The gaskets are confirmed to be on correctly. They're Felpro gaskets. The left hand gasket is "right side up" and the right gasket is upside down. The tab on the front of the head gasket is sticking out of the front of the block on both heads. I've had 2 full time mechanics look at the gaskets and they are on correctly. One of the mechanics bleeds Ford blue and used to build cylinder heads for Junior Johnson.

LiquidGT said:
Also, are you putting the themostat in backwards, is your water pump the right rotation or is your water pump spinning the wrong way because of ''custom'' belt routing? I know they might sound like stupid questions, but its hard to tell when you're not there.

I had problems with a warped radiator cap flange, I kept replacing the caps and they would eventually warp too.

I removed the t-stat and replaced it with another one. The spring is pointed towards the engine. The water pump is rotating in the opposite direction of the crank. This is the same water pump that I had on the car prior to the H/C/I project and it worked fine before. It's also the same rad I had before and I had zero problems with it.