Overheating issue

[PSherg]

Hello,
in a nutshell- i bought my car, upper radiator hose had a crack sprayed coolant everywhere. next day i went to autozone grabbed upper and lower hoses and a gallon of 50/50 green antifreeze. completely drained the old coolant out, replaced the hoses and poured in the antifreeze. shortly after car begins over heating, i ran the car w/ radiator cap off and topped it off. i also read that you can follow the upper hose to the block and remove the screw there (i forget the name of it) and wait for the fluid to pop outta there. did that, and the car didn't overheat, ran fine. Now, she recently started overheating on me. Does this have anything to do with the change in the weather in chicago??
any suggestions?

[allenms240]

This has to do with improperly bleeding the system I believe. Have the car off, jack it up, open the rad cap, and take the screw out. Add coolant until there is a stream (with absolutely no bubbles) coming out of the bleeder hole. Now put the screw back in while coolant is flowing out. With the car still jacked up, and the cap off, turn the car on and let it run for a few minutes while having the heater on full blast. This helps to remove all the air that may be present. After about 10 minutes, turn it off, put the cap back on, and take it for a test drive. Make sure you keep an eye on the temperature while your running the car without the cap on.

If it is still overheating, you need to take a look at the thermostat, water pump, or worse case - a blown headgasket (Although you'd see water in your oil and smoke most likely).

Also, try searching a little more. There is a ton of this information all over these forums, and I know I've seen many threads like this here.


_A

[PSherg]

I've looked around plenty, and this also lead me to suspect that it could be my thermostat. my head gasket is seemingly fine, it's my piston rings that i'm worried about :/

[CSUPUEBLOTIM]

Thermostat might be starting to stick. Easy and cheap fix. Give it a shot and re bleed the system after you replace it.

[PSherg]

i re-bled the system two days ago- runs wonderfully!
on a side note- i thought that was extremely weird that it started overheating after so long. i was sliding around earlier in the week when it was raining, and after really gettin on it she overheated a little bit. but yeah, at idle she just overheated like crazy 3-4 days ago. do you guys think i just improperly bled it to begin with?