bigguyonbike

hey everyone,

today i install my mugen t-stat, fan switch, and radiator cap. well after i finished i took it out for a test drive and realized my temp guage is pointed straight up. then a couple minutes later it's back to normal. it did this acouple of times and eventually stay in the upper portion of the guage. what do you think the problem is and how can i fix this? i did a search and couldn't find out how to resolve this, only that the problem might be air in the coolant system. i'm getting kind of worried when i see needle pointing up, so will the experts please enlighten me on a solution. thanks!

NiteQwill

Take the air our of your coolant lines! That's dangerous for your car.

blader

Holy hell dude, I'd be a little worried about that too. Does the car have any power? If it is truly overheating I'm sure it would back off your timing like crazy and the car would feel dead. It is easy to get air out so try that first. Start the car with the rad cap off and let it warm up, then gently squeeze the top radiator hose and see if bubbles rise to the surface.

Other than that .. how did you install the thermostat? Did you re-use the stock rubber gasket? Did you make sure to install it face the right way? give us some more info on what you did to install.

bigguyonbike

how do i go about doing that?

bigguyonbike

i used the stock rubber gasket, it's facing the the right direction, but i didn't SQUEEZE THE LINE WITH THE CAP OFF. i think that's the problem. instead i just filled the radiator before i started the car.

the car feels like it has no power. and also the climate control is blowing out warm air when it's 80 something here in portland. can i still get rid of the air in the system even though i've driven it on a test drive? if so, i'll wait until it cools down and try to fill it up again.

bigguyonbike

thanks for the input blader. i bled the air out of the system and it turned out to be 1 1/2 to 2 quarts low. then i took the car out for a test drive and the guage reads normal again, but to be sure i drove on the freeway for about 15 minutes and all is well. thank you!

Chemmech

Is the hole in th thermostat facing up? It needs to be in order to bleed all of the air out of the cooling circuit; or you can disconnect the upper radiator hose at the radiator and slowly add coolant and water until it's full, of course you need to hook the hose back up when your done. After you are done, you can check to see that the air is gone by starting the engine and placing your hand on the hose, when the car warms up you should feel the hot coolant running through it.

phipark

That's a scary story. Good thing it didn't get worse.

Pure Adrenaline

iTrader: (2)

That's what air pockets will do to ya.

My brother had that happen to his car after the body shop fixed his front end, including the radiator. They didn't bleed the system, and it had air pockets in it. The temp gauge would shoot up occasionally, and that means the air pockets are travelling through the system.

darrinb

whoa, close call there

bigguyonbike

very close, but acl.com is always there to the rescue.

Chopsie

Damn man, glad ya got it resolved