If you run hotter when you turn on the A/C in city driving, this is probably why..
 

Thought this might help some people. Its been asked in the past and this is the most likely culprit. I know its winter now, but you can get ready for next summer.

If you have nothing else wrong with your cooling system, this is just about the only thing that will cause you to overheat/or run hotter, AFTER you turn the A/C on in city traffic. The fans can only pull so much air through the radiator and condensor to carry heat away. If the condensor is dirty, you're pretty much in trouble...for city driving with the A/C "on". With the condensor blocked with debris your engine is just locked into a death spiral and the coolant will keep getting hotter and hotter, it won't be able to cool in the radiator like its supposed to. Then, at a point, the t-stat will just not get a chance to close, then you're all done. On the hwy, you should still get plenty of ram air to keep things cool as coolant enters andf sits ion the radiator. Mine started getting hotter and hotter over a 6 month period, with the A/C "on" during city driving. Then finally it got to where the needle would move right into the red on the gauge in about 3 minutes and I could not use my A/C in the city driving, hwy only. The only possible culprit was a dirty condensor. I cleaned it and my temp would not go above 185 in city driving no matter how hot it was outside. I clean mine every 2 years now.

Did this yesterday, it was bad.

First thing I do is put the front end up on ramps. Then, remove the battery. Then the overflow hose which is attached to the radiator cap. Then I remove the overflow tank which is under the battery. Might as well clean it while your at it. Then from the top I remove the metal tranny line which is right under the radiator fill cap, unplug the low coolant sensor, disconnect the T-Stat only and leave that radiator hose attached to the radiator. Then from underneath the car I unplugged the two fans and let the wire hang. Then opened the valve to empty the coolant from the radiator.

Take the lid and hoses going to the TB off, and just set them on top of the intake.
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Then disconnect this hose and lay it on top, leaving the two power steering cooler lines attached.
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Then remove the four 10mm bolts holding the air box onto the frame. Two on each side.
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After you take the 4 bolts out and lift the air box off, there is nothing else holding the fan assembly, radiator and condensor in. They are literally just sitting there attached to each other by hooks.
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The fans simply attach and sit on the radiator.
The radiator simply sits on the condensor.
The condensor just sits in place up front. A/C lines kind of hold it in place.
NOTHING bolts or fastens these in place, they sit sandwiched together on hooks.

First, remove the fan assembly. I got under the car and just took the palm of my hand and hit each side on the bottom to break it free from the little 4 hooks it sits on that are attached to the back of the radiator. They are just little hooks in all 4 corners in the back of the radiator. The fan assembly has to go up about 1 inch and backwards to break free from the hooks on the radiator. This is when a friend should be standing in front of the car simply holding the radiator down and forward to help you. Then you just work the fan assembly downward and out. Also, same with the radiator, you need to get it off the hooks that are mounted onto the condensor in the 4 corners. Lift up and backward and the radiator will break free from the condensor.
WARNING: Make sure as you pull the fans out you try like hell NOT to let any part of the fan housing touch the radiator. It will mash and crush the very thin cooling fins and that will hurt the cooling effectiveness of the radiator. They can be mashed with just your finger touching them, it doesn't take much. So don't touch, at all, the front and back surfaces of the radiator and condensor.

After the fans are out you should then lift the radiator straight up and out through the top. Just work it around everything and you'll get it out. Didn't get a pic of the radiator and condensor sitting there together. Just the condensor.
See the rubber piece in front of the condensor? You can take it off if you want to, its easier to work with things.
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Here's why cleaning of the condensor every 2-3 years is so important. Everything from dead bugs, to bird feathers, rocks, sticks, etc.... gets caught in there and kills the airflow that needs to get to the radiator for the real cooling. The debris keeps the hot condensor from shedding its heat. The condensor then gets hot and the only air that does get through to the radiator is HOT air, it just starts a bad process and an engine will start to run hot over time.
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If you want to clean the condensor, use a piece of wood to bang the condensor up against. Now, the top A/C line is all metal, so it won't give much without splitting and then you'll need to buy a new $80.00 line from the dealer, have the system vaccumed out and refilled with R34. The bottom A/C line is metal and rubber so it will give alot. Just be careful. ****And also know, it might break, so its your choice to do it this way.***** I just have no other way of cleaning it out. Pressure from a hose will not shoot the debris out, I tried with a very powerful hose.
Just take the condensor and wack the FRAME against the wood like 50 times. I did it like this and pretty much all the debris came out the first time I did it that way. This time I took the condensor all the way out. Disconnecting the A/C lines. It was just way too dirty on the entire surface.
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Then just put it all back together the opposite way.

If I had a friend to help out it may have taken me 2 hours and less hassle and struggle.

Good luck.

Thanks that was very helpful.

I wonder if you can use a pressure washer and blast the gunk out from the engine side?

^Yea I dont see why you couldnt.. If I were to do this i'd def rinse it out

Just my garden hose on high with the nozzle set to stream didn't do anything. BUT......what it did do, which is very bad, was collapse the little heat fins. I had to take a razor and one-bu-one straighten them all back out so air could flow through them.

A pressure washer I think would definitely have the power to blow that shit out from the back side forward....but you'll need to only go in up-and-down motions over every inch very slowly so you don't collapse the heat fins.

Give it a shot. If I had a pressure washer I'd try it next time.

Better than banging it, thats for sure.


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I tried the pressure washer before with no luck; the banging works well. I do it every 2 years as well.

Great write up, just did this and the car runs much cooler now with the Ac on. Both radiator and condenser were pretty dirty.

HAHA, lol. I just did something like this reciently but i removed the condenser entirely...... the system had lost its seal a while ago due to a lower hose bumping the belt...so yeah, now my car runs at the first line, about 25% heat

Mine does that with everything in place and working.

I found lots of fur and burnt skin on one of my Trans Ams when I starting investigating why my car was getting hotter than ussual.

I see a bird found its way in yours, lol.

I good powerful shop vac worked pretty decent at cleaning the crud out of my radiator fins. I imagine even better once you'll able to loosen up the stuff that gets trapped in there.

awesome i gotta do this asap

Good Info, suprisingly nobody ever thinks to check the radiator for debres.

my car just started doing this a few days ago.
with the a/c on it was running warmer than it usualy does so i guess i got to do this.

hose from the back did the trick for me.......it was DIRTY !!!!

Its funny that you never saw things like this happening 5-6 years ago when these cars were newer.. but now that theyre showing age I can see this being a serious issue

I just got my 200K+ mile Z on the rd and I did notice that in stop and go the temp does creep up and I was hoping I didnt have a blown hg.. car runs fantastical otherwise.

Just went outside to look at rad after reading part of this.. whattayaknow

there is a light acid that heating and cooling guys use to clean condensers on a house a/c system. the last time a kooling guy came to my house a cleaned mine i baught some from him. and let me tell you it works great. i put it in a pressureized container and spay the condenser down on my car let it sit for 10 minutes and rinsed it with water and it was clean as a whistle.
since then i have stopped by a heating and cooling shop a baught some from them. and a fine comb. i will never do it any other way again. hope this helps.

Nice writeup. My condensor did look like that and I cleaned it. But with my setup it still made everything run to hot so I deleted it. The radiator is so efficient now along with my transcooler. Its great weight reduction to! lol. We will see how long I go without it though.