Overheating :( Any tips?

[nocwage]

My car was running fine right out of the shipping container but the guy that owned it in Japan must have lived in a warm part, the "coolant" was apparently just water!!So of course this being an Iron block car the water was pretty orange. The car had no problems etc but I figured since I was going to put her away for the winter I might as well flush the coolant first.

Mistake.

Now it constantly overheats. I swapped out the termostat with a new one and it STILL is overheating.(it was flushed by Nissan btw, not myself so I'm "assuming" it was done correctly).

The car will overheat about 20km into a drive.It's got about 2 bottles of Water Wetter in it and probably a 60/40 mix of water to coolant, so it's definately not the mix!

Could my water pump maybe have died?Is there a way to tell without ripping it out?

[r34 gtr]

well, i think you would know if your water pump died. about the only way it could have stopped working without snapping into two or more pieces is if the belt came off. my guess would be that it needs to be flushed several more times. also, is the radiator fan working correctly? that might do something. check the radiator as well, something might have been dislodged during the coolant flush and it might be blocking the radiator. the radiator might also just be blocked. drive it around until its warmed up and then put your hand near the radiator and check for cold spots, if you have them, you might want to invest in a new radiator.

also, the reason the japs use straight water is that the shelf life of cars over there is much shorter, so they dont run into cooling problems due to passages being blocked from using pure water in an iron block engine, as the engine isnt on the road long enough.

- tim

[nocwage]

There is no way the pump could just be "underpumping" ?Is there any additive I could use to make sure I get any large deposits out of there?

[WeldingHank]

there is a prestone super flush thats supposed to pretty much leave your cooling passages like new. but i think you need to drive around with it for 2 hours or something like that.

[Nunook]

If you can look under ur water pump there is the pee hole. If it is leaking from there then the water pump is bad. did the nissan people do a reverse flush on the radiator? Meaning did they take it out, turn it upside down and pour the water from the bottom. Is the water boiling or just the gauge goes up?

I would have put straight coolant in the car for the rest u gave it. maybe an idea for next time

[float_6969]

Mine was the same deal. The CA radiator was all plugged up, so I used the CA one and then flushed the crap outta the block. Then I ran straight antifreeze in it for a week, then drained and refilled. I did it again a week later to make sure it was cleared out (and it was) and then I just left it alone after that. I ran the car for 6 months like that w/o a problem and when I pulled the motor back out to rebuild it, the antifreeze still looked bran new...

[nocwage]

So do you guys run straight coolant to keep the rust away?Because "coolant" doesn't cool the engine as well as regular water would, so a higher ratio of water to coolant would keep the engine cooler and dissipate more heat..

I dunno if they did a rad flush or not, it took them about an hour but that doesn't mean the rad was removed..

I'll look for the "pee" hole, but my coolant levels haven't been down from what I've seen, if I ran the car for a while in my garage (door open of course) should I see a puddle form?

[r34 gtr]

you might see a puddle, i dont know how big the "pee hole" is. we dont run straight coolant. i think youre supposed to run a 50/50 mix, thats what i run. the reason for running straight coolant is to make sure the coolant passages are cleaned out. ryan ran straight coolant for a week, drained it and refilled with straight coolant and ran that for another week, then switched to a coolant/water mix. i think thats what he means.

oh and ryan, im guessing you meant that you used the KA-e radiator since the CA one was all stopped up. thats what i did too.

- tim

[NeedCAforS13]

I got a koyo... no more overheating problems and I run a 50/50 mix coolant/water... never gets above the second bar on the gauge.

Sean

[nocwage]

Did you get an actual CA rad or just us a KA Koyo rad?

[r34 gtr]

the ka24e and ca18de radiators are exactly the same. you just get a koyo for a ka24e.

- tim

[NeedCAforS13]

KA24DE radiator is the same too I used a twin cam KA koyo...

Sean