My car overheated today....it seems my problems with this car never end...
Okay, so here's the deal. I have had overheating problems before. Within the last 6 months, I have replaced:
water pumpthermostatradiatorradiator capcoolant temp. sensor.
The coolant temp sensor was the last thing replaced because my gauge was registering in the danger zone, but the engine was cool enough to touch. That was maybe two months ago.
The car overheated today and the coolant level seemed fine. Running the hot air seemed to work for a bit and actually made the needle go down a little, but not for long. I got home just as the needle was almost all the way up. I knew it could have been tragic, but I went ahead and put my hand flat on the top of the engine. It was cool enough to leave it there for a second or two without being burned. I am almost positive that means the thing isn't really overheating, but I'm certainly no expert when it comes to the cooling system. Is there anything besides the coolant temp. sensor that could "trick" the gauge? Would an air bubble in the system cause this sort of problem, or would it actually make the engine hot? I'm out of ideas. I've searched a ton, but it's hard to find solutions among people whose engines really are overheating.
Overheating, but not really
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s13sr20chris
- Posts: 4148
- Joined: Tue Jun 10, 2003 9:32 am
- Car: '89 Nissan S13 w/redtop running 13psi and not leaking fuel anymore
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Re: Overheating, but not really (240femme)
generally valve covers on overheating cars are hot. yours may have been localized overheating or inaccurate gauge though. a better test would be to grab the radiator hose and see if they are both hot. also, try bleeding the coolant.
you have 2 sensors side by side one is a 2 wire sensor , this is your coolant temp sensor for the ecm. the other is a single wire, it is the coolant temp SENDER. this one is for your gauge. 240's are notorious for being hard to bleed you may just have an air pocket in the system. this will allow it to get much hotter in the head since the air tends to get trapped against the T-stat so unless the spring on the t-stat is submerged in coolant hot enough to collapse the spring it wont open and the temp will rise in the car. The cooling fan theroy wont work either for the same reason, if the ECM coolant temp is in an air pocket the temp it registers will be drastically off from actual temp.
I was reffering to what c-rad said when I said either. yea I think it is possible you have an air pocket, try to get the front of the car as high in the air as possible , use one of those specially designer bleeder funnels you can get at the local parts house. and run the engine for 20 mins or so reving it up occasionally to try to purge the air out.
what chris was reffering to is there being a rstriction in the system causeing it to get hotter in certain places, best way to check for heating issues like that is to see if you can grab ahold the rad hoses. if they both feel about the same temp thats might not be your problem, but if the upper hose is so hot you cant touch it but the bottom you can comfortably hold on to you have a restriction in your system somewhere.
what chris was reffering to is there being a rstriction in the system causeing it to get hotter in certain places, best way to check for heating issues like that is to see if you can grab ahold the rad hoses. if they both feel about the same temp thats might not be your problem, but if the upper hose is so hot you cant touch it but the bottom you can comfortably hold on to you have a restriction in your system somewhere.
