What do you do when car over heats?

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-- What do you do when car over heats?

Posted by gOOD-tRiP on Aug-18-2002 20:50:

What do you do when car over heats?

even though its long please read!

i had to abandon my car in a different city i cant trust... this is what happened. i was racing my friend with his supercharged solara SLE V6 and my 98' integra GSR and i guess i was getting too excited becasue i was hanging with him that i went a LITTLE over redline that my car over heated! so i pulled over on the street in southern cali irvine. i popped the hood and it was steaming from the radiator. so we checked the radiator bin to see that there was no radiator anti-freeze anymore. so my friend went to go buy anti-freeze for me. then i put the whole anti-freeze into the radiator (not the bin). but then after i drove off, the left side temperature gauge kept going back and forth from middle to hot. so i leave my car at a local friends house for around 5 hours. then i tried to drive back home with it, but soon it keeps getting over heated, i pull over from the freeway and i pop the radiator cap and all this water gushes out and its steaming again. i dont know what to do to so i leave at a residential area where i dont really trust to wait till tomarrow since its so late. what are the chances of getting serious internal damage? any person well informed about this please help me if you can. im in desperate need.

Posted by Munken on Aug-18-2002 21:09:

This is hard when i only know the technical terms i danish, but i'll give it a try.

Sounds like you migth have some damage on your cylindre head, or the gatchet (can't spell it )

Start the engine, and let the engine get hot (normal hot) hold the hose(?) after the thermostat to check if the thermostat opens (hose gets hot).

As the engine gets hot chech if the ventilator starts.

Check the radiator, engine, hoses for any water leaks.

If there no water leak, the vetilartor starts and the thermostat opens, let the engine cool down, remove all the sparkplugs get a friend to look at the engine as you try to start it, If water flyes out, your cylindre head or gatchet is busted.

Posted by igottaknow on Aug-18-2002 22:12:

hopefully its the thermostat (that regulates the flow of water, if its stuck closed it will over heat the engine) thermostat are cheap to replace. however if you've blown the head or warped it, that will cost u big time.in either case id tow the car to prevent furthur damage.

btw, its dangerous to open the radiator cap when hot, you could get burned bad or the cap could blow off and hit u in the head, killing u. also its not good to pour cold water/antifreeze directly into the engine, u might crack or warp the block, pour it into the overflow, it will automatically suck it up if it needs water.

Posted by jp on Aug-18-2002 22:14:

best way is driving on slow speed to keep the enigine cool with air, but never stop and turn off the engine cause the waterpump will not work anymore!

Posted by torontotrance on Aug-18-2002 22:47:

My guess is it's the water pump....

Posted by Fraggle on Aug-19-2002 03:29:

yeah, do what Munken says

check the coolant (anti-freeze as u said) is topped up, then after the engine is heated up, make sure the cooling system is working by pressing one of the large hoses from the radiator...if it's hard to compress the cooling system should be okay

if it flexes easily, u got problems there

if the radiator fan doesn't turn on after then engine is heated then it could be just the thermostat, but i would think that would cause such overheating as u described

if u can't find any external leaks, could be the cylinder head/gasket as Munken mentioned

bad luck there...pretty expensive job to get that fixed as the engine has to come out & will need machining etc.

hope u didn't burn urself when u opened the radiator cap!!!

thought that was general knowledge, but hey u should be more careful

err...u musta been thrashing it pretty hard...it should have a rev limiter, but still if u go "a little" over redline that won't do that much damage usually...u didn't start thrashing the shit out of it on a cold engine did u?