indirocz28

iTrader: (7)

Ok- i have a 94 LT1 with a 97 block w/ stock aluminum heads, mods are in my sig.

although it has an electric CSR waterpump, and the radiator and rad. hoses are about 8 months old. I just replaced the thermostat about 3 weeks ago.

Anyways- saturday the car all of a sudden started overheating really fast, like 15/20 mins of driving and it would get hot, i couldnt even get home saturday night, had to park it at a friends house.
A buddy that has a 97 LT1 that races told me to clean the metal pipe that connects to the back of the heads and then clean the bolts and what not.
So i did that, and the water flowing through that pipe and into the radiator seemed to really be flowing good now. Well i filled it up with coolant, let it warm up, and went driving around and got it to heat up to the 1st mark above 160, then i stopped and opened the bleeder and let all the air out and filled the radiator up the rest of the way with coolant.

Well, this was fine for about 20 mins and then it overheated again.

We arrived at my girlfriends dads house and the car was pukin coolant out of the overflow, and startin to get up twards the red mark, so i shut it off as soon as i pulled in the drive way but kept the key on so that the fans and the electric waterpump would run and circulate the water.

Well - we let it cool down a bit, then took off the radiator cap- when we looked in- it appeared that no coolant was lost..., but i start the car up again after it has cooled back down to like 170 or so ( we stuck a thermometer in the radiator to read the temp) and started it back up with the cap off, coolant started coming up out of the radiator cap hole, and started goin into the overflow, but not fast enough, then it started overflowing from the radiator cap hole and just running everywhere.

We let the car cool down again, and i pulled out the 180 themostat, and put the housing back on. Took it for a drive, and in about 10 minutes the gauge in the car showed that it was getting hot again- goin up twards the red mark, so i pulled it back in the driveway and shut it off and the key too so the waterpump was off also, we poped the cap off the overflow and the tank was full of coolant, we stuck the thermometer in there and it showed about 150*, then we opened the radiator cap and of course- it was pressureized in there and some sprayed out, but when we got the cap off and stuck the thermometer in it the thermometer read 180*..

There is no water in the oil either..

I took the CSR pump out of the housing today and then turned it on- it spins, and seems torquey.

the housing is all nastified, and pitted and inside the center of the housing where the impeller would sit.
the car is firing on all cylinders also w/o missing a beat..

Anyone have any sugguestions?? BTW:- the car will sit and idle right at the 2nd mark on the temp gauge on the dash. but when you go driving is when it heats up. It seems like it will sit and idle there at that mark for like 15/20 mins and not get warm, but when i take it on a drive in less than 5 it over heats..

after i get this all straightened out im going to put in a 160 thermo- thats what the computer is programmed for. and a new clutch, but i have to figure out this cooling thing first....


Plan- as of yesterday-

I already have a TB bypass, i have taken the waterpump housing off- I have the CSR electric conversion- It works just fine, but the housing was all pitted and nasty, i pulled the pump off the block and its all nasty inside- looks like when u mix orange and green coolant together..- nasty stuff..- so, what im gonna do is or what im doing is- lettin all the liquid drain out over a few days, then ima blow it out w/ the air compressor, i've got the radiator hoses off and im going to blow them out too and flush the radiator, im also gonna blow air through the heater core- at a low pressure- to see if there may be a blockage.. The computer has been tuned for a 160* stat, and the fan/waterpump are wired so that when i turn on the ignition it comes on the other fan comes on when i run the A/C and if the car gets hot it kicks in...

I bought a new waterpump housing ( stupid me- bought one for a vette, thinkin it would b the same, but NOO!) Anyways- its being machined to fit the camaro and having higher flow elbows put on it...

I also bought a 160* stat im going to put in, and a new temp sensor that goes in the waterpump housing and a new temp sensor switch that goes in the block btwn the 1 & 3 cyl's..

What i did today-
Ok- Today- i hooked the water hose up and turned it on and flushed out everything till clean clear water came out. Didnt have any nasty water or anything come out.Just green and clean water...
So i put everything back together and put in my 160 t-stat, and started filling it up with coolant, and bleeding it..

and let it heat up- and then bleed out more pressure and put more coolant in it.
it never takes more than 1/4 gallon at a time..

It will sit and idle - when its cold at 160, and when warm - at the mark above 160....
But if you give it a bit of gas- and hold it at like 2000 rpms - the temp gauge starts goin up, and if u drive it- it goes up alot faster..

I replaced the temp sensor in the water pump, and teplaced the temp switch on the block btwn the 1 & 3 cyl's.

There is no water in the oil. the radiator and hoses are like 8 mos. old, i cleaned out the tubes and bolts on the back of the heads last weekend. the radiator cap is a Lever lock for 18psi and is like a month old...

Ive posted on Camaroz28.com- but no answers- just a bunch of ppl messin around..-

Help is greatly appriciated...

1994Z28Lt1

iTrader: (1)

it almost sounds like its getting air locked you do know the best way that i have found to bleed the f-body lt1 is to open both bleeders when you are filling the radiatior untill water runs out the thermostat housing bleeder, close that one then then start it up and wait for water to run out the heater hose and let it keep idling and opening each bleeder from time to time til you dont see any more air and then fill it with coolant again

but dont forget to close the when you go to fill the radiator otherise you just lost the progress you just gained

its interesting that you say it looks like dex cool and the green antifreeze got mixed, because a 97 would have been origionally equipped with that garbage its possible that crap clogged some of the passages in your radiator


another thing how about the front air dam? is it there? that would cause it to heat up when your going down the road.

the electric water pump are you sure its flowing as much as it ever has?

just some things to look at

redhot lt-1

iTrader: (2)

check your rad cap it could be bad if its not allowing the cooling system release its pressure. i know it sound simple but if its old it may hang up they work kind of like your stat

1SLO6

iTrader: (8)

Damn are there cliff notes to this story................. Make it short and sweet what it is doing, what u did and what parts u changed.....

Honda Hunter

iTrader: (8)

I agree with 1slo6. I want to help but I need some cliff notes lol.

zlover129

iTrader: (10)

flush your system and make sure not to put any dex cool in there. A friend of mine had problems with the Mezier and CSR water pumps. Sounded kind of like yours, it could idle for 30 minutes straight with no problem, but once he went on the road it shot up immediately. He put a stock one back on and the problem disappeared

indirocz28

iTrader: (7)

OK- here is where im at today-

I did a pressure check on the radiator cap- It was bad, i bought a new one, and i did a pressure test on the cooling system- Held pressure in the 17-19psi range on my particular tester- with an 18psi rad. cap.

The cap didnt fix the problem.

The other day i flushed the whole coolant system out-and no crap came from it., just green then water.- the block was clean also.

I put a 160 t-stat in yesterday and that didnt change its problems either.
I also changed the sensor in the water pump housing, and the one in the block on the driver side.

There is no water in the oil, and it fires on all cylinders. Car doesnt smoke or smell like its burnin antifreeze either.

But i let it sit and idle today for like 20 mins- and the car got warmed up, then the temp gauge started going up. So its gettin hot just idling..

Im not sure that the electric water pump was working today because i didnt see any coolant coming out of that " bypass" tube that comes from the back of the heads down that tube along the intake and then to the hose that goes into the radiator..

But, if i have the cap off, and i start the motor- coolant starts flowing out of the rad. fill hole almost immediately...

Also- this problem didnt occur until i changed to colder AC Delco CR45TS spark plugs for running the nitrous. - i dunno if this would affect anything or not..

I hope that these are good enough cliff notes..-
I appriciate everyones responses- anything else- please let me know as this is my daily driver- and im lucky that work is only like 5 blocks away..

Thanks!

spee

iTrader: (1)

I don't know if it would cause these symptoms, but the water pump isn't wired up backwards by chance, is it?

Honda Hunter

iTrader: (8)

Are your fans turning on? Did you check the fuses and relays? From your last post it seems to be all that is left.

Myzon26

i know you might hate to hear this but mine is in the shop for the very same symptoms building pressure in the cooling system overheating after driving but not when idling. i have had it in and out of one shop already and they say blown head gasket cracked head or cracked block even though there is not oil in antifreeze and no antifreeze in oil no white smoke at all. the reasoning is that they did some kind of test where they detected exhaust gasses in the rad. i have it in another shop that works on only fbodys right now and they are supposed to get ahold of me tommorrow about the problem. i have troubleshot everything i could think of before i put it into the second shop but now im starting to think it might be one of those three. i hope it isn't in your case but i'm almost sure it is in mine. good luck man

camar0corey

iTrader: (22)

I had a shop try to tell me that once, that the test found exhaust gasses in the coolant. It was completely bogus, my front air damn was ziptied on my 83 z28 instead of bolted on. What do you know, I use the proper bolts and the temp never got over 180. But now he is having cooling issues just idleing, sounds like the water pump from what you are saying. Was your factory pump bad so you went electric? If you have a good factory pump laying around I would test to see if it solves the problem.

indirocz28

iTrader: (7)

My air damn is completely put on and good.. lol- proper bolts installed

My fans and water pump are wired on so that they come on when you turn on the key...

I really hope its not cracked/blown or anything- the pressure test should have revield some sort of leak.

However, now i think that my electric water pump is shot- During the pressure test i noticed that air was leaking from where the motor part sits inside the mounting flange of it- this would mean that the seal has gone bad inside- which- could possibly lead to water gettin into that motor and killing it.
Im going to pull it off and send it back to CSR and have them re build it for $65. It was a few years old anyway...

indirocz28

iTrader: (7)

How much of a pain is it to convert back to the stock waterpump drive system?
Thanks

zlover129

iTrader: (10)

Not too bad, just install the stock water pump and housing and get rid of the wiring for the electric one, like i said, this fixed the problem immediately in my friends car, we were getting nervous that he had a crackedo or something like that also.

indirocz28

iTrader: (7)

Well- what about that drive shaft that comes from the cam gear?? some ppl told me i had to pull off the timing cover and all that stuff to put the stock setup back on....

Steve in Seattle

did you pull the cam drive out when you converted to Electric? (boy I hope not )

If not, just slap on a new o-ring seal, drive coupler, o-ring seal, and a stock pump.

If you went a step further an removed the opti, timing cover, timing chain, to remove the 3" idler gear when installing the e-pump you'll have to do it all again to re-install the gear.

It has a big bearing that gets pushed into the block, so you may be up for a challenge if that's the case.

Camaro Bird 1987

well what I would do is to go back and get a known good water pump set up and then I would take the Thermostat out and bolt the housing back in, then start filling it with coolant. Start the car and leave the radiator cap off. The coolant will bubble and spit, just keep it full. eventually it will settle down. Put the cap back on and check to see if you have heat in the radiator hoses on both sides. after put the thermostat back in and then make sure that you have heat on both sides of the system and you should be good to go.

If you did have a leak into the engine you would have known by the pressure test. If you are weary of the coolant leak put a sniffer in the exaust. There shouldn't be a problem if it is running good. An other way you can tell is to take the spark plugs out and look down into the cylinder (if that is even possible in the F-bodies). If it is a little leak then it would most likely cause some kind of missfire.

freshmanit

So what ever happened with this? Just curious. Having the same problem.

indirocz28

iTrader: (7)

I just sent my electric waterpump back to CSR and had them rebuild it with all new parts for $65 and then backflushed the whole system for like 30 mins with a backflush kit from autozone for like $ 3..

never had a problem since..