Car info...

96 TL 2.5 176k

I was in city traffic over the weekend and the weather was pretty hot and humid... high 80's etc... With the AC on I noticed the car started to stumble at idle and I noticed the temp gauge was nearly pinned. I turned the AC off and then turned the heat all the way on trying to use the heater core as a secondary radiator which worked. This happened twice both times with the AC on in stop and go traffic.

The antifreeze "looks" good, as in bright green and no particles floating around, and both the fans kick on when they should. My only guess was the thermostat isnt working correctly however if it wasnt opening I would suspect no hot coolant would be flowing through the heater core which would mean that using the heat to drop the temp didnt make sense.

I've had a very slight (like once a month) seeping of coolant from the thermostat housing (when it does its just a tin bit of droplets) so I bought the gasket and the thermostat and hopes it fixes it but wanted to see if there were any other suggestions on what it could be.

Thanks!

 

Good place to start. Hopefully its not a plugged radiator

 

Get a better thermostat gasket "not universal" (the one with the tab) and use some honda bond around the seam of the housing it won't hurt. Also let's hope it's not the gasket that goes on top of the thermostat housing.

 

Heater core flows w/ a closed thermostat. That's why you get warm air w/i 1-2 mins of startup on a cold day,...at least a Houston cold day (50 degs brrrr!).

Bad thermostat sounds right.

good luck

 

Bought OEM parts so I should be fine.

 

I'd recommend a full coolant flush and replacement of the thermostat. The new OEM gasket does not require any hondabond or silicon of any sort and should be torqued to 9ft. lbs.

 

Cool thanks, I'm going to repalce the coolant because A) I dont know what's in there from the previous owner (type/ratio/etc...) B) it'll let me see if there's any crap in there and let me flush it out a bit and C) its cheap.