I’ve had an issue where the DA overheats after going from a stop (red light) usually starts going above op temp. right after shifting to 3rd, and this is not racing the motor. Cools down a few minutes after that. Rad Hoses, T-stat, and water pump have all been replaced. I flushed radiator and heater core. New rad cap (twice) but the radiator which I installed a little over a year ago is off ebay. So I’m wondering if maybe it just went to shit early on cause its off ebay and the rad cap doesn’t seem to be sealing like a normal cap would on any other car. It holds the coolant in fine, but symptoms showing could be a cap issue. Wondering if OE caps aren’t fully compatible with this ebay radiator that I have.
Pissed that the issue is still going on after all this work, especially the blood and sweat that went into my first-ever water pump install.
Also, when attempting to ‘bleed’ the system by running the car with rad cap off, I never saw any flow in the top of the radiator once at operating temp. I’ve seen a healthy flow before on this car and this same ebay rad so I know what it looks like.
First do a pressure test on cooling system if no leak is found then make sure cooling fan is kicking on, it may be a bad cooling fan relay which is common on these cars. if still an issue & your losing coolant yet no leak is found then it could be a headgasket, is the oil milky ? Are compression #'s for each cylinder good ? Etc ?
If you’re not seeing water in the radiator put some more coolant in it. Also, get a new cap. The cap not sealing properly is likely causing it to boil out.
[QUOTE=djzachtyler;2291344]are your cooling fans kicking on? may want to check the ECT sensor if not…
do a compression & leakdown test & also perform a block test to rule out head gasket issues…[/QUOTE]
Will prob do these, can you do a block test without taking a bunch of shit apart?
Fan kicks on but only after already overheating and it’s really loud, might be missing a bracket to keep the shroud completely steady BUT still overheating before that becomes an issue…
Cap is new, like I said, but it doesn’t screw on and seal like normal caps in the past
I’ve done a cooling pressure test, didn’t see anything. Took recently bought t stat out and put it in boiling water to rule that out. I can’t keep going through coolant (I’m losing some each day I test drive it, likely to evap… And today I didn’t have something to drain the coolant into when checking stat) so would it be cool to just add water from now on or could I possibly fix the issue but not notice it because water has a lower boiling point than 50/50? Still need to check for milkiness in oil, will do that in morning. Hope it’s not HG…
block test is done by removing the radiator cap and using a test kit… basically it detects exhaust gasses in the coolant by changing the color of the liquid that comes with the test kit.
compression test is done with a compression gauge it screws into your sparrk plug holes… just make sure if you do it yourself you do not screw the gauge in too tightly… it can be a bitch to get loose if you do as the tube between the screws and the gauge is rubber. leakdown is measured by how long it takes for the cylinder to lose pressure
compression test should yield between 160 - 185 PSI ( a little below those numbers isn’t necessarily a bad thing just means your rings are a bit more worn) across all 4 cylinders on a typically healthy B18A/B engine if you have more than a 10PSI variance it could indicate a possible HG issue greater than 10 PSI variance = no bueno