Friday the 13th Strikes Me Down! (1 Viewer)

[alpendubber]

Planned on going to Black Bear Pass and Telluride for some wheeling and camping all weekend. Finally, off work at 3:30, get home, park cruiser in the alley to load up gear. Very snooty irate bitch in a new suburban super pissed that I blocked the alley. Explain to her I'm busy loading go around...hah ha, at this point I know that this is not my day.

Leave at 4:00 for 3 hour drive to Ridgway, cruising down I-70 with my new 33" super swampers enjoying the new ratio from my tires. I look down and notice my temp gauge is pegged!!!! Holy crap turn on the heat, luckily it happened at the exit to Parachute.

Pull into the gas station to check it out. Nothing burst but my overflow hose was doing its job. I waited but it was taking to long so I threw some rags over the cap and let her go. I had a really nice geyser for a bit, started, let run while pouring in 3.5 gallons of new coolant at 18.00 a bottle, let idle for 10 minutes or so. It cooled right down to normal...all is good right.

Jump back on 70 heading westbound, staying cool no problems, all of a sudden after about 40 miles in 95 degree heat it jumps back up, heat is now back on, hoping to make to it to GJ.

So, thermostat, clutch fan, tiny pinhole in radiator by filler neck, failing water pump???

Rode home via AAA free towing, now 9:43, enjoying a beer at home instead of in the woods. Damn.

Any ideas?

 

[chukardog]

thermostat or fan clutch is my guess. sucks!! that reminds me, Im getting AAA.

 

[alpendubber]

70 bucks a year.......way worth it.

 

[Dirty Toad]

How long since you changed the thermostat? I would start there, it is a cheep and easy thing to do.

at freeway speed the engine SHOULD be cooled by the wind enough to avoid overheating, even with a 95 degree day. My race car has no cooling fan at all, and ran perfect on a 105 degree day at California speedway going full throtle for 40 laps.

start there, if it needs more, then at least you know the thermostat is good.

 

[alpendubber]

I'm going to pull it apart in the morning. I stopped at Checker to buy a new stat but they didn't stock it. I was thinking of just taking it out at one point and continue my trip but I didn't want to get outside of my 100 mile free tow and still have a problem.

Funny thing about flying down the highway with wind blowing trough the rad (I agree ) but.... This is when it overheated, then pulling in to Grand Junction with traffic and sitting at lights it started to cool down.

 

[my02]

A similar thing happened on my FJ73 a couple of years ago.

Turned out to be the temp sender unit. Have you had the actual water temp tested?

My dash unit indicated "shes gonna blow!" but the actual temp of the water was slightly below normal.

 

[cabron]

how's the fan clutch now? powerful? could you stop it easy by hand?

 

[60wag]

I doubt its the fan clutch - overheating on the highway and not around town. If the system has a small leak, that could allow it to boil and loose coolant which would read hot after a significant amout of coolant was lost. If you're reading hot while the system stillhas plenty of juice, then I'd replace the t'stat and have the rad flow tested. You could examine the rad with an IR thermometer to see if it has any cold spots when the system is hot. Also make sure the belt spinning the water pump is healthy and properly tensioned.

 

[sandcruiser]

1st: add an aftermarket temp guage. It's nice to know what the actual temp is vs: the stock "cooler, hotter" thing.

2nd: are you running straight coolant now? or was that stuff already premixed 50/50? If straight, it may work better w/ 50/50 water. But that's clearly not your original problem.

3rd: if you put 3.5 gals of coolant in, you probably have a leak somewhere. Even it was geysering out of the rad.... usually you don't lose 3 gallons.

4th: after checking the above and adjusting belt tension, maybe you should remove the tstat and take it for a ride. Keeping an eye on the temp. If it still overheats, then it wasn't the tstat. Having said that- a new tstat isn't a bad investment anyway.

5th: Maybe the water pump is pooched. Seems more likely than the fan clutch, based on your symptoms.

Good luck

 

[alpendubber]

Thanks for all the feedback. I think the belt was loose. Maybe at higher speeds it was slipping just enough.

I have been driving around in town all morning with no problems what so ever. I'll have to take it down the highway to see, unfortunately it took about 40 miles to start really heating up. At 3.42 for 85 this won't be cheap...ha ha.

I did buy a new 180 degree stat, will replace it tomorrow.

Again..thanks for the help.

 

[InsanityIsBorn]

unfortunately it took about 40 miles to start really heating up. At 3.42 for 85 this won't be cheap...ha ha.
quote]


3.42?? wow, I live in the mountains of Colorado and I thought I had it bad, at a whopping 3.39. Whereabouts in CO do you live that would sell gas at such a price?

-Kiel-
Gunnison, CO

 

[alpendubber]

Glenwood, I also paid 18.00 a gal for coolant in Parachute. The same coolant at napa today was 6.99. This valley pisses me off more and more everyday. If anybody needs a prime example of price gouging come here.

 

[Rigger]

Too bad about the overheat and gouging, but good thing you carry AAA. I do, too, and I'll never be w/o it.

 

[RockDoc]

I might be barking up the wrong tree here, but do you know for sure that it is overheating, or are you just going by the pegged guage?
My truck (and many others from what I have read) has a gremlin in the instument cluster (oxidized ground I think) that causes the temp guage and the fuel guage to peg in tandom on the highway. Usually only shows up after a few hours of running, and only lasts for a couple of minutes at a time.

 

[Jaybikman]

I might be barking up the wrong tree here, but do you know for sure that it is overheating, or are you just going by the pegged guage?
My truck (and many others from what I have read) has a gremlin in the instument cluster (oxidized ground I think) that causes the temp guage and the fuel guage to peg in tandom on the highway. Usually only shows up after a few hours of running, and only lasts for a couple of minutes at a time.

Where is this ground connection be located at if so there is a oxidized connection? My factory temp guage pegs and drops all the time. I replace the sensor thinking it was a buggered temp sender. Turns out it was the same symptoms. I plugged in a aftermarket sensor reader guage from NAPA, and it always reads a steady 195 F.

 

[sandcruiser]

if you pull the cluster, you can see where the guages ground.

A simple fix is to run some small wire from the screw on the cluster to a bolt or a sheet metal screw.

Also cleaning up the ground with some emery cloth will help