More Coolant Issues

[Chris28]

Lately my cooling system has been giving me some problems. It all started when my temp gauge always read cold. I would check every time the engine cooled down to make sure there was still coolant in there, and there always was. Last week I popped the same heater core hose off twice on different occasions, and now whenever I stop the car I check for leaks and to make sure I still have fluid. All this time my temp gauge has still been reading cold the entire time I'm driving. Yesterday, my temp gauge actually starts displaying normal operating temps. I think this is weird so when I stop the car I check for pressure in the hoses and they were firm so everything was actually working. Tonight on my way home I see my temp gauge drop from about in the middle of the scale to as cold as it gets. I immediately think I've blown the same hose off so I pull over to check. I feel the hoses and there is no pressure, so I figured I have no coolant. I pop off the rad cap and look inside, and there was actually coolant in there! I had some water bottles in the car so I topped off the system, it took about 1.5 water bottles with the bleeder screw out to fill it up. I drive home and check the hoses, this time they are firm again.

First of all, wtf is going on? Why would after 15 minutes of driving the hoses have no pressure, but there aren't any visible leaks? Also, why would the temp gauge drop from halfway to cold within 5 seconds? I'm running only water in the system because I'm fed up with putting coolant in there only to have it end up all over the street. I'm going to get new radiator hoses tomorrow because I think the lower hose may have a small leak, and that would account for the 1.5 water bottles amount of water that was gone, but other than that I can't think of what my system is doing. I'm also going to get a new temp sensor and see if that fixes it.

Thanks for reading haha.

[mRodiek]

Maybe replace your thermostat? Try the sensor, but if your popping off hoses then there is pressure building up somewhere..

[Chris28]

Yeah, I think I'm going to do thermostat and sensor. The hose was only popping off because of the old stock hose clamp, I put new ones on since then. Thanks for the reply.