Hey my car has been overheating recently. I don’t know if this is related but a couple months ago my heater started taking forever to start working. It’d start workkng after about 20-30 minutes of driving. I ignored that since it was almost summer anyways. Then just a couple weeks ago it overheated when i went up to vancouver bc; i was doing a lot of city driving trying to find parking and whatnot. I put in water and was able to drive all the way back to seattle no problems. But now I have to put in coolant everyday because it keeps on dissappearing. It doesn’t overheat if I dont do a lot of stop and go driving. I startted it up this morning and looked at it closely and noticed the radiator fan isn’t coming on. What’s going on?
The first thing to do is determine if the fan is still good or not. Unplug the harness and use some wire strait to the battery to see if it spins. If it does then its likely just the fan switch needs replaced. Some Prestone coolant flush is usually a good idea at this point. Since it has overheated I recommend replacing the thermostat for safe measure. Once that is in and you fill the coolant be sure to bleed the system of air. There are a few threads on this board on the proper way to do it.
Also does your car ever blow white smoke when the engine is cold? Any leaks on the driveway when you pull away after being parked for a while? These could be signs of some bad hoses, bad radiator or a blown head gasket. From you description it doesn’t sound like it but hey, no harm in asking.
No leaks and no smoke. Just stick wires to the fan harness and connect them to the battery?
Bad radiator cap maybe or plugged overflow tube? If your cap doesn’t hold pressure, then water would just leak out of it when hot. The water/coolant has to be going somewhere. Either it is going into your engine and burning or it is leaking. Those hoses are 20 years old. A small hole can be hard to see/find but can still spray a lot of water out over time.
Is this a good thermostat?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/90-93-ACURA-INTEGRA-GATES-RACING-LOW-TEMP-THERMOSTAT-_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQhashZitem5180b50fb2QQitemZ350051700658QQptZMotorsQ5fCarQ5fTruckQ5fPartsQ5fAccessories
question so i did do a lot of research but nothing specific came up and i want to be sure. To bleed the system i read that theres a bleeder valve just right where the upper coolant hose is. So you loosen that, start the car, and pull on the throttle cable until coolant shoots out. Another way is to start the car with the radiator cap off and let it run until you hear “burping.” Are both these methods correct?
yea, you can burp it through the filler neck too. remember to turn your heater on max while bleeding.
i’d probably put a pressure tester on it. find out where the leak is. and if you can’t find one, after looking carefully, i’d look towards the head gasket.
any white smoke in the exhaust ever?
as mentioned, it could also be the cap. any white residue around the filler neck?
k so i get random impulses to buy sh*t and I bought a cxracing aluminum radiator, upper hose, and prestone coolant today. Getting ready to swap radiators =]. Anyways, I know there’s the radiator drain plug, but is there an engine coolant drain plug? If so, where is it? I read somewhere that there is a coolant drain plug on the block but I’m not sure if that’s for g2 integras and I couldnt find in on my car. It wouldn’t be the bleed bolt would it? Thanks
I know it is water under the bridge now since you bought a new radiator but did you ever check the radiator drain plug? I was losing coolant like crazy and the drain plug wasn’t fully sealing.
Lol!
nice and how long did it take you to figure that one out?
Check the oil,if it’s milky or discoloured in any way then im guessing head gasket.
If thats the case then the head might be warped too from overheating.
Good luck
ok maybe im overthinking but I took my coolant reservoir out and when i flip it upside down coolant comes out of the seams of the cap. Does that even matter? When coolant is being siphoned from the reservoir to the radiator do you think it could be leaking from the cap? The overflow tube isnt leaking or anything. I dont think it would matter because the coolant is siphoned through the tube so the cap shouldnt matter. right?
that cap doesn’t have to seal. it’s normal
Lol, I knew someone would bust my balls on that one. Seriously though, no one had mentioned the drain plug yet. In the extremely rare case that a noob searches the forums for an overheating problem that would be one of the first things they’d want to check.
fixed it omgz i did it!!! so besides burning myself a few times, installing the new radiator and hoses went smooth. Made sure all the clamps were extra tight, drove downtown, got stuck in traffic there and back, got home, checked the coolant level, and no coolant loss!! YAYYYY!!!