Neverending quest to keep it cool (1 Viewer)

[import silvia]

*sigh*

This cruzah has no plans of ever just running at a normal temperature. I belive I must either accept that or move on.

In the last 8 months:

New Thermostat, hoses, radiator, heaterlines
Flushed the cooling system many times
Added engine and tranny oil coolers

Now, after having made it through the hotest part of the Tucson summer with no cooling issues at all (staying at the lower line), the temp has again begun to creep up, AGAIN. It is heating up while idleing and durring heavy stop and go traffic.

So the most likely accute culprit is the fan clutch. But, as much as I like my 62, I am begining to feel more and more that the real chroinc culprit to these nagging failures of systems that I have repaired over and over is the tired old Land cruiser in my driveway.

She has a quater million miles on her and has the wear and tear to prove it. She spent many years as a boat tender up in New England has some frame rust, nothing too bad. I have repaired quite a few electrical gremlins lots of new sheet metal and have to admit I am growing weary of this never ending list of pending repairs.

I really want an expedition worthy vehicle that I can drive a few hundred miles on a freeway and then a few 10's more into the woods with consistant reliability. And about 80% of the time I have one, but it is never a comfortable trip. I am always concerned that something is going to go wrong and I'll be forced to make alternate plans to get home.

I guess in the end these random repairs are cheaper than the monthly payments would be on a newer cruzah and I can beat on this one off road with less guilt, but still I would like for the damn thing to just stay friggen cool!!! I want to sign off on the damn cooling system and be done with it!!

ARG.

 

[6840]

have you checked for a head gasket leak?? Take it to a repair shop and have them use their exhaust sniffer to check for exhaust in the coolant.

 

[import silvia]

The temp cools back down once I get underway and get some air flowing. Not something I would expect with a blown head gasket. But I'll check the coolant of exhaust, it can't hurt.

 

[lowtideride]

Sounds like a FC...bummer ya dint catch it sooner. But it looks like ya have peice of mind with all new cooling stuff. If you are replacing the FC replace the WP to while you are in there...and for gods sake use Toyo stuff...

 

[mrsvle]

I live in Tucson and had this exact same problem with my 83 FJ60 overheating in traffic or when idling for a time in the summer heat. Finally I got an electrical pusher fan from Pep Boys, attached it to the front of the radiator, and wired it to a switch on the dash via the wire for the radio. That did the trick. It still gets hot, but the pusher fan keeps it away from the danger zone. And since I've got it wired via the radio wire, it shuts off whenever I turn off the engine so I don't have to worry about leaving it on and draining my battery. I guess this might be the next step if the fan clutch checks out.

I finally bought a clean 4Runner as my daily driver. Now the Cruiser is just for outdoor adventure and working on it is an enjoyable obsession. Now it doesn't matter if it sits in the driveway for a couple months while I'm busy with other matters.

Cheers,

Matt

 

[cwb]

Sounds like a lot of people are high on electric fans, but if all stock components are working properly within this fairly simple cooling system, you won't have a problem, even in Tucson. If it's heating up at idle, it's almost certainly the fan clutch. Those new components were probably working so well that they concealed the problem for a while. Replace the FC and see what happens. Some people favor an electric fan for various reasons (maybe a slight HP gain) but an electric fan isn't necessary to keep a stock Cruiser cool.

 

[lowtideride]

Sounds like a lot of people are high on electric fans, but if all stock components are working properly within this fairly simple cooling system, you won't have a problem, even in Tucson. If it's heating up at idle, it's almost certainly the fan clutch. Those new components were probably working so well that they concealed the problem for a while. Replace the FC and see what happens. Some people favor an electric fan for various reasons (maybe a slight HP gain) but an electric fan isn't necessary to keep a stock Cruiser cool.

agreed.

 

[djawahir]

Also, don't forget to check the water temperature sending unit. Mine had a loose (and partly burned) wire which I think was leading to funny readings. It couldn't hurt to check.

 

[High Desert]

My 84 60 was creeping up on hot at times. I had the original H2O pump and the original fan clutch laying around. Put the old fan clutch on and now all is well. the newer clutch, aprox 30k miles on it, was not ingageing enough, was making some noise but not like the one I replaced it with that has 70K miles on it. Now it's a noisy ride with that roaring going when it warms up, but temp stays at or just above 1/2.

 

[loeky]

i'd get some real numbers. i installed a mechanical temperature gauge recently and the truck runs at 205F [215F with AC blasting] on the freeway at 70MPH. i've read it should be at around 195F, so i'm not that far off. i've replaced every major component in the cooling system as they were all going out. i don't have a busted gasket - shop proved that with the sniffer.

the only thing left i can do is replace the bent up AC condenser that may not be letting enough air get past the radiator. 1/4 of it has really bent up fins from a bender before my ownership.

before having the mechanical temp gauge - my stock one was showing the truck almost redlining when on the freeway. freaked me out obviously until i finally got the other installed last weekend. the gauges on these trucks really are pretty crappy, but the good thing is the truck is running better than i thought.

start with the cheap/easy stuff and move to the rest. unfortunately all my parts were busted and needed replacing. was a good hit on the wallet, now they are done for the next 200K miles.

 

[TremorX]

I've just gone through the whole replace-everything bit, and my factory gauge still reads that I'm about 4-needle-widths from redline when highway driving. The truck runs fine otherwise, but it's really making me nuts.

The only thing I think could be wrong is either 1) head gasket or 2) timing way off. #2 is highly likely, as I retarded the timing about a year ago to try to get it through emissions in AZ, and unfortunately rounded off the distributor clamp bolt in the process so I haven't tried to reset it since. The truck idles kind of rough at startup but smooths out after it warms up.

I also suspect my catalytic convertor of being really, really clogged so that could be part of the problem. It runs cool early in the morning or at night, it's just when the sun is out that the truck runs hot at all.

 

[Moby]

Fan clutch - buy OEM only!!!

I just replaced my fan clutch. I had the corner shop charge up my A/C after I replaced my leaking A/C compressor and they said the fan wasn't moving much air. This corresponded with temp spikes at idle and cool running on the freeway.

When I got the fan clutch off and compared it to the new OEM clutch it was clear that the fan clutch wasn't bad, it's just that it wasn't OEM. This is one of the reasons I now do as much of my own work as possible - this fan clutch was installed many years ago by a shop that promised to use only OEM parts

MarkW wrote in TT a while back about the problem with aftermarket 60/62 fan clutches. Looking at the aftermarket clutch that was in my 62 it's clear why it didn't work as well (smaller, lighter, less surface area facing the radiator...).

Do yourself a favor - spend the money on an OEM fan clutch (I got mine through CDan - his price break makes it easy to buy OEM). I now run nice and cool at idle and in traffic

 

[Kief]

Ditto on the OEM fan clutch, ditto on the catalytic converter-especially if it has been replaced with a non OEM- which has beads instead of a honeycomb which is likely to get clogged or burned-up with a rich running old rig (or oil burning). A muffler can get clogged as well, especially if the catalyst takes a dump. I had this happen when I left the choke on and BOOM, the catalyst exploded into the muffler(a few months old).
I have also found one block full of stop leak which kept the cylinder walls from transferring the heat, and a freshly rebuilt motor was fried. DUH!( PO's did it- not me). A really dirty block may be hard to clean with just a flush. If the rear coolant drain plug doesn't unplug easily you might still have junk in there.
You still have the fan shroud on, right?