Just been for drive on the beach and noticed the cruza got real hot after only a couple of kms ,temp went up to red and had to stop, I let the tyres down and continued on a couple of kms and there was no problem after that... of course there was extra load but I wouldn't have thought it would have got that hot that quick (I've done it with previous vehicles without any issues on short drives). Starting to think it might be the fan clutch or thermostat; the cooling system is very clean, the car only has 135,000kms on it and it's a 93model. Does anyone have any thoughts or know where I should start first?
Over heating on sand
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Yep, Fan clutch would be the first port of call. You can open it up and put a tube of silicone oil in it (available from Toyota for about $15 from memory) and that will usually fix most of them.
Fan clutch is a definite check but sand will cause overheating on it's own if not deflated like you already found. If you are on big tires, heavy load, etc it will only make it worse. Dropping the xfer to low also helps.
I go to LOW and 2nd start / gear - usually does the trick. airing down helps a lot too
All last summer after more than ten minutes at 15 to 25mph on sand and dunes my engine would start pinging pretty badly and temps would get up to 225 or more. Turns out I had a slight crack in the top plastic of the radiator for a long time. So I put in a new Toyota 3 row, and a water pump (just because we were in there anyway), and she runs cooler on the road and sand. Never over 215 on sand. And on the road I never go over 189 now, which I don't think is even up to normal operating temp.
As for gearing I normally just air down and leave it in drive.
As for gearing I normally just air down and leave it in drive.
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Ya know.... there's no charge for shifting to low range and your engine and transmission will thank you for it...
cheers,
george.
cheers,
george.
Yep thats normal for it to roar when first started cold but it should go quiet (start slipping) within 20 seconds or so. They then should tighten up again when they get to operating temp. Its not very easy to hear it tighten when hot and almost impossible to effectively test it, so it is just best to put an extra tube of oil in and see how it goes. They are a common cause of overheating under load and especially at low speeds which is exactly what you are describing. By the way when you replace the oil don't drain the old oil out, the idea is to add a new tube of oil to the existing oil. Occasionally they will require replacement but 90% of the time new oil is all that is needed.
Let us know how it goes.
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Well i decided to just buy a new clutch unit and new fan belts installed it and went for a drive on the beach ..tyres at 35psi high range about 2min of loading it the temp started to rise quick.. Back off the beach and the temp came back to half In about the same time.. Obviously it must be just to much load for it.. I'll take for a run tommorow at 15 psi ... I'm not expecting any issues ...
It still should not be getting hot. even under that load. Especially that quick! I would be looking into the rest of your cooling system. Im not a big fan of aftermarket fan clutches. I have seen a couple that have been no good out of the box. I would be putting a thermostat in it (again go genuine, they are almost as cheap as aftermarket and I have also seen dodgy aftermarket ones straight out of the box) and getting the radiator properly cleaned (Unless you have done it recently) When I say properly I mean top and bottom tanks off and clean the core tubes. A lot of the time they may look clean and the coolant may look clean but they can still be 30 or 40% blocked.
What engine are we talking about?
What engine are we talking about?
Where on the gauge does you temp gauge needle normaly sit?
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about half
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i will try a new genuine thermostat..i havent had it cleaned .just flushed it myself..its the 1fz 4.5
About half sounds right. Yep thermostat sounds like the next logical step. While you have the coolant dropped I would do another reverse flush of the radiator just for good measure. The best way is to reverse flush it with a running hose and big bursts of compressed air at the same time.
Yeah, my hunch, too. I don't think anyone mentioned checking/replacing the radiator cap, as that is one other low road to a fix that might work.
Otherwise, been through this sort of thing myself. The 80 series is at an age where there seem to be a lot of radiator failures due to blockage, for whatever reason. Still almost 20 years or more is a pretty good service life. Use a remote reading thermometer and check for an even temp across the radiator. Cool spots would be blockages. A little is OK, a lot is not.
Eventually determined ours needed a new radiator, so R&R it last fall. Since it was already cool by then, no real opportunity to test when hot outside. it still acted like something wasn't right under certain conditions once it warmed up this year. Found that I came up 10 grams short of a full fill when I modded the fan clutch. That made all the difference in the world and haven't had a lick of trouble with it since.
Just ran 40 miles of beach in mexico last month. Keep it in low so your rpms stay high. Never got over 195. Even had the a/c on for most of that.