Thermostat Q's

[Opposedodie]

I have a Fail-Safe Thermostat installed in my 5.0 and a factory Radiator both are only 6 months old... I know I need a 2 core or more, The problem I have is ether the Thermostat is sticking and pushing out about 1 1/2 gallons or somethings going on... Sitting in the driveway running and no leaks , no white smoke and no water in the oil. Timing is set at 12 Deg. I stopped at the store and it was at 180 . drove it home , about 3 miles and it was up to 240 when I got in the driveway. It has done this about 4 times now. Any Ideas?

 

[foxstang93notch]

The fail safe if it gets stuck it would be in the open position to keep coolant flowing none stop to fight an engine over heat problem. Are you running a stock fan or an electric fan set up? So are you loosing coolant somewhere if I'm reading that correctly?

 

[Opposedodie]

Yes fluid is going I think to the over flow tank then out on the ground as I am driving. New hoses last week with all new fluid.. I put in a electric fan 2 weeks ago from a late 90's Taurus with a new fan controller, I have the controller setup to come on at 190 and it shuts off at about 150. Driving down the Highway at 75 mph it will not go above 160..

 

[foxstang93notch]

Might be some air in the system causing it to burp out of the over flow. Is the overflow bottle full when you stop driving or does it look normal? If it's showing a normal level then I would suspect air in the system. If at highway speeds the temp stay good then I would beg to guess that the electric fan isn't strong enough to keep in cool under stop and go type conditions. Also are you using a stock gauge or are you looking at temps on an aftermarket gauge. The stock gauges suck and are prone to give weird readings.

 

[Opposedodie]

Aftermarket gauge setup, Direct reading gauge. Tank is empty or close to it after driving.. The electric fan is a 2 speed and I have it wired up to the high side. It works good , I did the 130 amp Alt upgrade at the same time with 4 ga. wire both hot and ground..

 

[foxstang93notch]

Probably a stupid question, but have you just let it idle up to temp and see if it still goes to the high side as far as temp goes. That would also allow you to try and figure out where the coolant is actually going. My guess is you still might have air in the cooling system that is causing hot spots. So you may want to try and run the car at idle with the radiator cap off to see if you can get it to burp the air out. Have you been driving the car since the radiator change or has it mostly been sitting since the radiator install?

 

[foxstang93notch]

Another question is what temp thermostat are you running. I would also figure out at what point the fail safe will stick all the way open. I know I put a fail safe in when I did a radiator install and the car started to overheat while I was burping the system and it stuck wide open and wouldn't allow the motor to get to a good operating temp. So at 75mph with the temp only coming up to 160 that would seem kind of low unless you are running a 160 thermostat.

 

[Opposedodie]

I drive it daily , I did let it run in the driveway up to temp a few times after the fan/Alt/controller install to get the temp right on the controller.. I also had the Rad cap off while filling it and to burp it, let run up to temp and it seamed OK, topped off the over flow and took it for a drive, but I didn't notice that the Rad was getting low until about 2 days after. While it was cold I checked it, topped it off about 3/4 of a gallon. I though it was an air bubble and drove it ..
It has been parked for the last 2 days , I took it out today and drove it around town, hit the gas station and it was at 180 when I got gas .. 3 mile drive home and it was at 240..... I am running a 195 stat .. What is a good temp to set the controller at ?

 

[Opposedodie]

Yesterday I drove the mustang and it was cold out, ran great, just drove it around town and it didn't get up to 240 , hit 200 fan kicked on and temp went down , problem is that I don't have any heat coming into the vent-defroster. It gets warm but not hot like any of my other cars... Any Idea's?