Overheated.....

in the Taco Johns drive thru in Williston, ND? WTF?
Luckily I was only about 2 minutes from the apartment so I took it easy over there, but really, wtf?
Car has been running fantastic since I got her put back together(apart from the oil burn), and I'm just sitting there waiting for my food and I'm like, hmm...smells like coolant, car behind me probably....Then I see smoke coming through my headlights, and when I pull out there is a huge puddle under my car.
Got to the apartment, popped the hood, and my overflow bottle was freaking out, and I could hear the coolant boiling in the pipes

dang, never good when coolant is boiling

My first guess would be a weak cap, Cheap enough to try a new one.

The cap was still perfectly sealed? I think all the coolant spewed out of my overflow tank hose?

taco johns, does it every time. sorry to hear it.

Lol. Car is fine, just wasn't happy for a minute. I noticed the smell before the gauge even touched the red and got it taken care of quickly. I'm just more annoyed than anything.

Kind of sounds like you have an overheating problem. Most of the time when cars overheat it is lack of fluid. It is very possible that you have been burning some coolant over time and then once the weather got hot enough it started to overheat. Refill and check to make sure it is not loosing any externally/internally and go from there.

RedMitsu wrote:

The cap was still perfectly sealed? I think all the coolant spewed out of my overflow tank hose?

The spring in the radiator cap holds the bottom part of the cap against the radiator. When the water gets hot, it overcomes that spring pressure and then the water can travel into the overflow. If your spring has lost its tension, it will release coolant before it has reached its designed pressure. Which sounds like is a possibility in your case because you could smell coolant before it even got to the red. Anyways, they are cheap so its worth a shot! Hope you get her figured out soon.

Dude that is the EXACT SAME thing the Venge did right after I boosted it. Just idling it would start heating up and a shit ton of coolant would litteraly BOIL out of my overflow tank!! I did a complete fluid flush and replaced the t-stat and the rad cap and I was good to go

Also................ the same thing that happened to me on BTR

Dr.Auto wrote:

My first guess would be a weak cap, Cheap enough to try a new one.

+1

Quote :

The spring in the radiator cap holds the bottom
part of the cap against the radiator. When the water gets hot, it
overcomes that spring pressure and then the water can travel into the
overflow. If your spring has lost its tension, it will release coolant
before it has reached its designed pressure. Which sounds like is a
possibility in your case because you could smell coolant before it even
got to the red. Anyways, they are cheap so its worth a shot! Hope you
get her figured out soon.

+1

Most cars like to run up to about the 230degF range.

Well how can this be possible? water boils at 212degF (at sea level)

And the anti-freeze mixture can up the boiling point a little but usually not enough to deal with 230degF

So....? Back to chemistry class.... for every pound of pressure you can put on the system you raise the boiling point by 2-3degF

Many caps hold about 15-16PSI so that means a good cap can up the boiling point by 30-45DegF depending on elevation.

When the cap gets old..... the spring that holds tat pressure gets weak and might release pressure before it gets to 5PSI......when this happens it blows coolant into the overflow tank and boils over because the car is trying to run at a temp that is higher than boiling point with no pressure on it to keep it under wraps. This will be most evident when the car is running sitting still.... cooling fans working or not. weak cap will get you like that every time.

Alright. So i will try the new cap, t-stat and coolant flush and see how that goes

Also a faulty coolant temp sensor could cause your fan not to come on at the right temp, and cause it to overheat.

Did you end up fixing the problem?

So, you overheated again??

yep. By the way, didn't fix anything yet. But my fans don't kick on so I am going to fix that first. Figure might as well make today maintenance day, so I will grab a new cap, tstat, more coolant (since mine was left on the ground at the gas station) and hardwire my fans. Hopefully all goes well.

Might wire in a switch to manually turn on your fans.

Cyfun wrote:

Might wire in a switch to manually turn on your fans.

Just don't forget to hit the switch if you do this. Not to mention if anyone else were to drive it. Spend the money and hook it up with a relay and a temp switch. You should have a factory relay you can use and then just replace factory temp switch with one with a lower turn on temp. Find a friendly parts store guy and he will have a book (or computer) he could look up turn on temps for different switches in and find one that fits in where your stock one is(probably in the radiator).

sxpkpower wrote:

Cyfun wrote:

Might wire in a switch to manually turn on your fans.

Just don't forget to hit the switch if you do this. Not to mention if anyone else were to drive it. Spend the money and hook it up with a relay and a temp switch. You should have a factory relay you can use and then just replace factory temp switch with one with a lower turn on temp. Find a friendly parts store guy and he will have a book (or computer) he could look up turn on temps for different switches in and find one that fits in where your stock one is(probably in the radiator).

I mean in addition to the existing system, so that if it seems to be getting hot, he can activate the fans manually. Of course the fans should kick on automatically, but it seems that they ain't.

might also check the fuse to the fan sand make sure that isn't why they aren't working. I ran a temp. switch and a manual switch on my fans but when my fuse blew none of my switches worked... thankfully it only happened once in the garage and I shut it down immediatly and fixed the fuse issue. Because faulty fans can cause such huge headaches I was going to wire in a warning light that was on when the wiring had continuity and shut off when it lost it (blown fuse) so that I had a safety check when I hit up the track... the car is sold, so no worries now, but something maybe to consider for your setup. They also have fuses that light up when blown, so you could always use that... I just never thought you could make that install look very clean if you wanted the light inside where you could see it while driving.

Im guessing it has something to do with the buttload of blown fuses he has.

well, as far as fixing the fan I think I am just going to hardwire it so it is always running. I don't see a reason not to. And once I get the FMIC installed with the new turbo setup I will be running 2 slim fans, 1 push 1 pull.
Just grabbed a new thermostat though so I will be doing that sometime in the next couple of hours and then refilling the system and hardwiring in the fans.

DoodieHead wrote:

Im guessing it has something to do with the buttload of blown fuses he has.

On a serious note, like, 60% of my fuses were popped

Good, get it fixed so you can make Lewistown. You have the rest of this week since we are not working, so you can get it done.

my buddys first gen talon did that, and we couldnt figure much out. my other buddy had a second gen that kept doing that, and while he was gone i did him a favor and replaced his thermostat, hoses, coolant, sensors, and a few other pieces, flushed out the block with a hose and found some metal shavings, water pump more than likely, but i didnt feel like getting that in depth. anyhow after i put it all back together, hasnt had a problem since.... so who knows. it was strange...

My rad fan isn't coming on so I just wired it to the ignition so it comes on every time the car is on.
Problem solved

maybe toggle switch or a coolant temp switch instead? it pulls on your alternator 24/7 than.. and therefore less power.

Yeah, you'll wanna figure out a more permanent solution. In the winter, you won't want your fan on much, I imagine.

I don't plan on changing this at all. There is no way a fan is ever going to drain enough power to be noticeable, and the car won't ever be hurt by being "too cool", which isn't even possible. Come spring I will toss my AC fan and run just the 1 fan, or maybe do a small 2 slim fan setup, but as of right now I am done with this aspect of the car.

Being too cool could make it run crappy, especially in the winter. Your car might not ever warm up.

How much air do the fans push? The way I look at it, if the car can warm up while driving say, 35mph (which would be flowing through the radiator), then it would just take longer to warm up than normal. If the fans alone were enough to keep the car too cold to not reach operating temp then I would say there is something wrong with the car before I looked to a small fan blowing ambient temp air onto the radiator

Guess we'll find out.

yeah, and believe me, I get what you guys are saying, but I am more worried about other things right now than if the car isn't hitting peak power in the winter, ya know.
I might run through it again in the spring, but sometime for sure within the next year I will be doing a battery relocation, fuse box relocation, and wire tuck. Can't get enough of those sexy clean engine bays.

I hear ya. It'll probably be okay. I was just thinkin that these cars do tend to run hot, anyway...

just pray that the car does get warm in winter haha heaters were a great invention, unless however they dont work haha good luck with all your mods btw.. post pics when its done.

If you have coolant problems i'm the guy to talk to trust me. i've had every coolant hose replaced in my z and a radiator and tried several radiator caps, and finally no more coolant leak alot of the problem is haveing too strong of a radiator cap too. reason being they have the psi pressure levels and if the cap can't open your car will overheat. try using an 18psi one. that fixed me after my radiator was replaced. if that doesn't fix it let me know more symptoms and i'll go from there.

these kindof cars do tend to run hot but that doesn't take from the fact that it does this there is deffinatley an underlining problem, and it needs attention or it'll nickle and dime you to death.

i know i'm loading this page, i appoligize but i also rememberd, if you haven't already, take a look at your thermostat too, they tend to go out quick with these kind of cars. especially if its modded. dont' know why..just does.

In response to everything, the vehicle was overheating because the fans weren't turning on. Could have been a bad coolant temp switch, could have been a bad relay, but already replaced the thermostat, rad cap holds perfect pressure. So I know what the problem is, and I have a temporary fix for it until the spring

good luck man. let us know how it goes.