doc76239

i bleed it out with an aircompressor fisrt, to get out most of the air. Then when it starts heating up, I open up bleeder bolt. but only steam is comming out. i think the water pump is bad.

ttwirz

I had similar problem with mine. only steam came out. It's like the system was not primed. Here is my goofy procedure that cured the problem.

(do this while car not running and be carefull if hot)
1) Fill coolent res.
2) put a socket with T handle on bleader bolt.
3) open bleeder bolt slightly and squeeze and hold top radiator hose, you should hear air his from bleader valve
4) Close valve and let go of hose, you should hear gurgle from res tank.

keep doing this until you squeeze liquid from bleeder bolt. then run / heet up engin and bleed normally. You should then be able to bleed it normally a few times and be all set. I did this and no longer have any problems. This was after a head gasket job so most coolent was out of the system and it just never primed right.

Matt O.

Keep the bleed screw open until you get a constant stream of fluid. NOT steam. Also, jack the front of the car up a foot or so in the front might help. I would be willing to bet it's your water pump.

renvagn

+1, my bet also. Since you are looking at thermostats, you can get a 160 degree one. There are poor controls as to what temp a so called thermo will actually open up at. Presurize the system if you have access to the tool and then bleed. Pressure check your cap. My cap of 3,000 miles was recently bad ande we were chasing a thermostat problem despite being new. Also you can install a fan switch so you can manually turn them on if you have to sit in a lot of traffic or better for cooling coming off the track. GL

doc76239

The fans work. The thermostat is a wahler 82 degree celcius unit. It was replace 2 years ago by previous owner. I'm thinking it might be the water pump. How hard is it to R&R one of these water pumps? Oh and the car overheats before i get a constant stream of fluid out the bleeder bolt, while the car is running. The cap wouldn't have anything to do with it overheating, it just lets out excess pressure, after the car is already overheating.

Matt O.

If the cap is the problem then it would let out the pressure before it's time, you'd run low on coolant, and overheat. A cap is 10 bucks. Might as well replace to rule that out.

If the car overheats before you even get a stream (ie pressure) then it's probably not air in the system causing you to overheat. But that is incredibly fast overheating. Are you sure you have filled the water resevoir up to the proper lines? Stupid question but I don't remember my car overheating that fast, before fluid started coming out, even when the waterpump was the culprit.

If you can do the timing belt, you can do the water pump yourself. Did you ever see if the upper and lower radiator hoses were both hot, or if one was cold and one was hot?

944J

this will happen if:

1) timing belt is not tight enough to spin the water pump

2) system is not bled, you have to wait until the car gets warmed up before the termostat opens up then bleed it, some turbo engine builders remove the thermostat all together btw

3) leaks in the hoses, cap that constantly let air in

4) low water

5) not sure how the radiator helps when the car is sitting still? could be the radiator

if this happens at a light then just rev the car between 2.5k and 4k rpms, this will speed up the water through the engine and cool it down

Wonne

Does your fan run when the car is idling? If not, it could be wire connections to the fan, fan switch, relay, fuse, etc. Turn the car off when it has overheated. If the fan doesn't continue to run, that's your problem.

Wraith1027

Old thread, same problem..Coming to work this a.m., I was noticing that the heater was blowing cold air. I then noticed that the temp guage is sitting above the second hash mark (about 10 o'clock.) Is slowly rose until the red lights of fear came on so I pulled over and shut it down. This was to no avail. It didn't cool down just sitting with no fluid circulating. I sat for approx. 15 mins. then started it up. As I started to dive off the temp came down to the bottom of the red zone and the lights subsided. As I got into 5th gear and going about 2200 rpm it started heating up again. So, I stopped..again. Sat a minute with it running and decided to rev it up a little to see whats what. Well, the temp started to come down. So, I revved it a little more. It cooled more. I got back down to below the dreaded red zone so I headed off again. This time, I left it in 4th gear and ran around 2800 to 3000 rpm and it held at just below the red. I have read what is here and will check the above listed and go from there. From my experience (non-turbo) this seems like a water pump that is begining to fail. Can I get a amen? Or should I look else where? I will get back here and post my findings once things settle down in the office and I can gown down and check things out. Thanks in advance..