Engine getting hotter than it should get...

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Engine getting hotter than it should get...

September 11, 2006, 12:54:11 PM

Hi guys (and gals?) .. been a while since I posted here but life has been seriously busy. I use to own a two-tone grey '87 tbird but unfortunately some *bleepitybleepbleep bleeper* paid more attention to his mobile phone than to traffic and t-boned me causing me to be bruised in places I won't mention, and my bird to have a bent chassis.

Luckily the guy that bought the wreck off me had another '87 tbird in driveable condition that I purchased for cheap.

It's engine/drivetrain are fine, the body needs some TLC and the interior... well... it could use a new one.

Anyway. When warm, my old 'bird always had the temp gauge pegged right in the middle of the "norm [" lettering (digital dash). The new one also has the digidash. I noticed on the highway that it sorta bopped up and down a bit from the middle and up one peg, then down one. When I got stuck in town traffic today I sat and idled for about 15 minutes after which I noticed the temp gauge being pegged all the way up to the last end of the "norm [" lettering.

This kinda worries me because it didn't exactly come down from there even when I spent some time driving around @ 45mph. There's coolant in the radiator, there's coolant coming into the overflow, the upper radiator hose is hot, there's no discernible leaks on the ground, there's no at-sight evidence of busted headgaskets (i.e. no white smoke from the exhaust @ idle).

Just trying to figure out whether this is "normal" -- the temp did stay within the normal range as indicated on the dash, but seeing how my old bird -didn't- have this happen, I worry

Anyone help me out on this?

Engine getting hotter than it should get...

Reply #1 – September 13, 2006, 08:06:41 AM

Did you happen to check if the lower radiator hose was hot? Could be your thermostat's closed.....Could be a number of things. Clogged radiator, line, heater core, pinhole leak somewhere, etc...

Engine getting hotter than it should get...

Reply #2 – September 13, 2006, 09:06:56 AM

My digital gage has always held steady at 4 bars even in 100 degree heat idling in traffic. So you definitely have an issue. I would buy a cheap buttstuffog temp gage and hook it up just for diagnostics. That way you can see if it's a actual cooling system problem or just the sending unit for your digital gage...

That's pretty much what I did when my (digital) oil pressure gage started acting erratically.

Engine getting hotter than it should get...

Reply #3 – September 14, 2006, 06:43:02 PM

Well, it hasn't happened since. I did try and duplicate my little trip-thru-town but it just held steady at 4 bars. I think it's just the sender going wonky. I hooked up an buttstuffog gage and the temperature of the coolant sorta hovers inbetween 95-100 degrees C.

One thing that mighta caused it though is when you rev it hard, the (new) waterpump gets a little over-excited and the pressure in the system goes up by a bunch, followed by the overflow canister filling up and draining again. Might've sucked in some airbubble and vapor-locked something.

Thanks for your answers though :)