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Maintenance & Repair Cooling Systems -- Problems & Solutions (Radiator, Fan, etc)
561 messages, Last post on Nov 12, 2009 at 1:37 PM
You are in the Maintenance & Repair Forum. Your Host is mr_shiftright
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Replying to: wlbrown9 (Jun 17, 2005 10:52 am) |
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Hi: Need some advice please. I have a 96 Chev Cavalier in pretty good shape but it has 164K. My problem is..my low coolant light came on and I checked it and the coolant was empty even though I had put some in recently. It wasn't running hot. Took it to garage and they said it was thermostat so replaced that and filled up coolant. 2 days later the low coolant light comes on again, I look and its gone again. Take it back to garage and now they say there is a small crack in head and need new one, it'll cost about $1200. so they tried putting in Stopleak which has so far worked. Will this remedy the problem or is it a short fix. Is the only alternative to have a new engine put in? I'm not good at this, by myself and am at mercy of garages so I'd appreciate any advice. Thanks, Karen
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Replying to: karenrb53 (Jun 18, 2005 9:27 am) first of all, they COULD be right but I'd like to know how they arrived at the conclusion of a crack in the head, as opposed say to a head gasket problem? In other words, what test did they perform to conclude absolutely that the head is cracked? (one good way would be to test for carbon monoxide gas dissolved in the coolant). So unless they can explain their diagnosis (you can write it down as they talk, that's fine) then you may want a second opinion. Maybe you just have a leak somewhere? If you need a new head, I don't think I'd do that on an engine with 164K, and I don't think I'd put a new engine in a '96 Cavalier either. Your car isn't worth very much, so I'd tend to encourage you to put that money towards a replacement vehicle. You could probably buy a decent '96 Cavalier with far fewer miles for $3,000 or so. Once you open up an engine, you don't know where it will lead. I'm just concerned that $1,200 might not be the end of it. |
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Hello, This is my first time porting on this forum. I just bought a 95 Cadillac DeVille, and I drove it home. When I got home, and I stopped the engine, coolant started to boil out of the coolant tank. No warning lights came on during the trip, and did not get any warning messages from the instrument cluster. Any ideeas? I'm not sure if the engine overheated because did not get any warning lights or messages. Any help is greatly appreciated.
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Replying to: luciano72 (Jun 18, 2005 9:18 pm) But presuming the better of human nature and that this was a coincidence--if you have lost a lot of coolant the warning light might not go on because the sensor cannot read steam, only liquid. Perhaps the coolant level was way down when you bought the vehicle. What you'll have to do is fill up the coolant and pressure test the system for leaks. If you have no leaks, then you look to other sources for overheating, which are many. On a ten year old car, the radiator is always suspect, as might be a stuck thermostat or an inoperative electric cooling fan. If these prove okay you might consider less likely candidates, like a broken impeller inside the water pump or a bad head gasket. |
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Replying to: luciano72 (Jun 18, 2005 9:18 pm)
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Replying to: luciano72 (Jun 19, 2005 7:36 am) Now the loose cap doesn't CAUSE the boiling over, keep that in mind, but it may have caused coolant to leak out, thereby compromising engine cooling and also causing your heat gauge to mis-read. So you may or may not have your problem licked here. |
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Overheating! thermostat has been removed,new pump and hoses everything virtually new and in working order. the previous owner may have done some strange re-configuration hose routing at the heater-exspantion tank area(by-pass and pump inlet hoses) there's no leaking. this is the one with NO radiator cap! It fills at the exspantion tank. Helpful answers Please. Bigbyrd to hot to fly
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Replying to: bigbyrd (Jun 24, 2005 3:56 pm) Certainly a vehicle this old should have the radiator flow tested. |
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Hi, after driving my 97 grand am for approx. 20 minutes I parked the car and immediately notice smoke (steam) coming from the top of the dashboard. At this time the fan was still running, and i heard a loud gushing sound, when I went got out of the car I noticed steam coming from under the hood and a large amount of coolant on under the car beneath the coolant reserve. I had someone look at it and they said they were unable to locate where the leak came from, but they thought it was from a hose connected to the engine. When I poured water in the reserve tank to see if I could drive it to a shop the water came right out. I had just replaced the radiator with a used one couple of days prior to this. Please give me an idea of what you think the problem might be, and how much you think it will cost to fix. Any help/suggestions you might have would be greatly appreciated
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