Help Please! Over Heating!(That's just the beginning of my problems)

7upstang91

10 Year Member
May 30, 2008
936
124
74
Florida
My first problem is, over heating. I was on the high way for about ten minutes maybe. The car has aftermarket gauges and it went to 250 degrees. slowly, I thought the gauges were off. So after I filled what seemed like the whole motor with water the car drove another 8 miles at about 210 degrees. This is to high I know so does anyone know what the problem could be? My first thoughs are the thermostat. The water pump isn't leaking. The hoses seem to be in good shape, any ideas at all? Oh what degree thermostat? I'm not so sure the way the belt is set up that the water pump is getting turned or getting turned at a good pace. The car has a carb, with three pullies and a tensioner. I'm an EFI guy and this is the first carb in my family.(Step-brothers car.) He is out of town of coarse. But I would like to get this first problem fixed.

Thank you very much!
 
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Thanks I bought a 180. I want it to be cool. As for the fan it has two electric fans(one blowing on the front of the radiator and the second pulling on the backside. Yes i went and got some flush only as the plastic piece to drain the radiator broke and is now stuck. I would replace it but it has the autotrans.
 
When you're at highway speeds (or anything above 45 MPH), your fans are pretty much useless because you'll be pushing more air through the radiator at speed than the fans are capable of pushing/pulling through there, themselves. At that point, it comes down to the radiator, itself, as far as whether or not it's getting enough air through their, if there are any leaks, and if any of the cooling fins are blocked or heavily coated with rust or corrosion.

Do you still have the the plastic airdam strip underneath the radiator support? Without that, it won't direct enough air up through the radiator while you're at higher speeds to adequately cool things - the air just scoots right on past underneath the car. Just putting that thing on, alone, made a huge difference on both my '89 and my '84; before, they were able to cool adequately, but just barely so, and whenever it got a little warm from sitting around in traffic, it would take friggin' forever to cool off, but with that airdam in place, getting up above 45 MPH for about a minute or two would cool things off right away. :nice:

Also, maybe take the radiator upport mounts off and tilt the radiator over to take a peek between the radiator and the A/C condensor (if it's still there) and see if you have a bunch of debris built up in there. I've seen some ridiculous amounts of junk get caught between the two on several cars I've owned; one '94 Thunderbird I had had the whole front of the radiator completely covered with this crazy rug-like coating of HAIR that was blocking things terribly (made a MAJOR difference in cooling after I cleaned all that crap out). Either use a pressure washer, or a good ol' garden hose with a "fan" spray attachment, or maybe even carefully use a Shop Vac and get all the crud out of there ... bugs, leaves, fluffies, whatever.

Beyond that, if you peek inside the radiator and it looks awfully scaled-up, you might try giving it a good flushing, but if all of the above fails and your thermostat is good (you'll want a 195* t-stat for stock temp, or a 180* for a little extra cooling - I'd recommend a Stant Superstat), then you might just have to break down and buy a whole new radiator. I went through EVERYTHING on my '84 - fans, fan clutch, shroud, coolant flushes, you name it - and it kept overheating no matter what I did until I finally just replaced the radiator. Now, even with the crappy little 1-core or 2-core (whatever the OEM standard replacement one is), it stays nicely cool no matter how hot it gets outside ... although, because the radiator is a bit undersized for my application, it doesn't enjoy having the A/C running while I'm in stop-and-go traffic (but that's kind of an extreme situation considering it's over 110*F outside, lately).
 
So I clean and flushed the radiator with the hose. I then put Radiator Flush in it and let the motor heat to 210, once it reached that point I turned on bth fans and the temp. went to under 200. Still haven't put the thermostat in her yet. Oh no A/C in her either but I didn't look for the airdam strip. I will later. Darker fluid as well as tiny pieces came out when I flushed it. Yes I feel your pain, the my A/C doesn/t blow cold in either my Notch or my Convertible. Now my family has a third one that doesnt. All the A/C stuff in my Notch is less than two years old.
 
The tiny pieces coming out is not a good sign. When I had a cooling problem with fluid draining out I could not find any leaks or problems so I took it down to the shop you do a head gasket test which turned out ok, but what was happening was the radiator was rusted on the inside and the tiny pieces would stop the coolant flow and started to get holes in radiator. The pieces would also cover the holes and when I would go highway speeds the pieces would come out and leak fluid and then seal up with another piece. You can always buy a standard radiator and run a seperate tranny cooler which is what I do.
 
The tiny pieces coming out is not a good sign. When I had a cooling problem with fluid draining out I could not find any leaks or problems so I took it down to the shop you do a head gasket test which turned out ok, but what was happening was the radiator was rusted on the inside and the tiny pieces would stop the coolant flow and started to get holes in radiator. The pieces would also cover the holes and when I would go highway speeds the pieces would come out and leak fluid and then seal up with another piece. You can always buy a standard radiator and run a seperate tranny cooler which is what I do.

Well the car has sat around for awhile. It happened to my mustang awhile ago and nothing happened as overheating wise. But hopefully it will be fine.