JLSain

iTrader: (3)

Just rebuilt the engine and cranked it up this morning. Car runs great.

The only problem is, it's overheating. I'm worried that the water pump may be bad, but it worked the last time that it was used. What makes a water pump go bad?


fluid is getting up to the upper and lower radiator hoses, but it's like it's not flowing into the engine. Any ideas on how to get the fluid into the engine or is the pump bad? Thanks for your help everyone!

mcamarols1

iTrader: (9)

u need to properly fill the cooling system, this is what i always done and it works for me.
1.start w/ a cold engine and with ur coolant already toped off
2.set ur heater in the on and high position
3.start ur car
4.look for for air the bubbles in the radiator, top off as needed
5.keep an eye on ur temp gauge, dont let ur car overheat.
6. allow it to idle until at operating temp and then turn heater off
7.ur done
always worked for me, i think their might be air right b4 ur t-stat, and its not allowing it to open

JLSain

iTrader: (3)

Air on which side? hose side or engine side?

Cop Car

iTrader: (14)

yeah, you might have to run it with the radiator cap off to get out any bubbles in the coolant system

jam01

sounds like a bad pump, or the thermostat to me. does the pump make noise or does it wiggle. but then again why if you just rebuilt the engine, ? didnt you relace the pump anyway.

DaddySS

Bad pumps are almost never the problem, in all likelihood you need to get the air out.
Follow these steps and if it overheats on the first warm up, shut it off, let it cool down and start again. It will burp the air out and then it will probably be fine.

Fill the radiator to below the fill neck.
7.2. Fill the coolant recovery reservoir to the FULL HOT mark.
7.3. Install the coolant recovery reservoir cap.

With the radiator pressure cap removed, run the engine until normal operating temperature is reached. The radiator inlet hose will become hot.
With the engine idling, add coolant to the radiator until the coolant level reaches the bottom of the fill neck.
Install the pressure cap.

TheBlurLS1

iTrader: (8)

These cars are a pain in the *** to fill with coolant. You have to stand beside it with the cap off for what seems like an eternity, just trickling in the water. Squeezing the hoses helps move things along too BTW.

When I'm doing it, sometimes the coolant tries to bubble up out of the cap. In that case, I just screw the cap back on and kill the car for a while. Remove it after it settles down and keep on filling. If the pump worked when you took it off, but doesn't now, I doubt it's the pump.

I had these same problems when I put my cam in, ended up having to do the above.

Cop Car

iTrader: (14)

funny thing is i had 0 problems with my coolant system.. must have been because i never put my radiator cap on untill i ran the car for a long time, and when i first started it i had no tstat in it.

TheBlurLS1

iTrader: (8)

You must have used 50/50 mix of dexcool and holy water!

JLSain

iTrader: (3)

I'm running amsoil in my car. It's not orange like dexcool.

JLSain

iTrader: (3)

Problem fixed guys! Turns out the 160 thermostat that I bought from someone on this board was bad. Put the factory thermostat and housing in and everything worked great!

DaddySS

Excellent! Glad you got it solved.

A note to all for future reference - be sure to mention all changes no mattter how seemingly unimportant when discussing problems.

JLSain

iTrader: (3)

point taken! Told you I was a noob!