At a loss.....

[Prospeeder]

Im just at a loss. I dont know what the hell else to do. My car gets over 3/4 of the gauge starts running alittle poorly, point and shoot says 260-280 on the sides of the heads, 235 at the Thermostat housing, and 210 at the top of the rad and 195 at the bottom hose. Fans wont come on till 3/4 of the gauge and it cant cool it back down. Just to prove the gauge is working, we used some creative jumper wires, my friends Chevy Truck, hooked to my sending unit says its running too hot, his sending unit hooked up to my gauge, says EXACTLY what his says. Soo im dead sure the gauge is fine, just to be sure we did the same test on a firebird with this gauge and sender and same results, my gauge is accurate. With NO thermostat, the car will go along all day with the gauge at 1/4 and and a/c on, if u shut the a/c off, the fan goes off, and it gets way up to 3/4 of the gauge before it kicks the fan on, and then cannot cool itself back down. WHAT THE HELL

New radiator
2nd Water pump
3rd thermostat
2nd temp sensor
new hoses
New heater core
Head gaskets less than 30k ago
New fucking EVERYTHING WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY wont it stay cool. it will 3/4 the gauge at 65 mph with a thermostat in, without it, stays a 1/4. Im getting really tired of this cooling system bullshit problem

[SilentWing]

Could it be that your low speed fan/relay isn't operational? That way your fan/fans wouldn't be kicking on until the A/C requests the high speed fan on which would be at a higher temp. If your low speed fan took a shit, it could be that the engine is throwing on the high speed fan as a failsafe. It could also be the intake/head gaskets again, but again that seems unlikely since you said you replaced them recently. Question, what's your fan setup? Is it the same as my Ciera with one big puller fan behind the radiator and a smaller pulsher fan in the front for the A/C Condenser? Or is it two pullers behind the radiator?

[Prospeeder]

whoa whoa whoa, we have a 2 speed fan? Its definatly only got one speed for mine at least, high, lol

[SilentWing]

Do you have two fans or one? Honestly if everything is new on it there's really only two things it could be. Either the fans aren't comming on at the right temps which could be the fans themselves, the relay, wiring, or the ECU.... or it could be that the head gaskets took a dump again. If combustion gasses are getting into the coolant it's a double hit because number one it creates air pockets in the system and number two it adds all that heat to the coolant that should be going out the exhaust. I'm Really leaning towards the fans because they're comming on so late, so you've got a fan problem one way or another, it just depends on what exactly the fan problem is.

[CamoDeafie]

Maxine has 2 fans. not sure why thats needed for a 2.5 but it works.

[Prospeeder]

i have 1 fan, it seems to be 1 speed but 65 mph down the road and it cant keep cool......thats windows down, heater on high but with the stat out i can have a/c on max at 65 1/4 of the gauge, its wonderful

[CamoDeafie]

hmm does your NAPA bible list parts for the fan relay?

[mechanizeddeath]

Weird. I had a car that did the same thing as yours, but it had two fans. The basic cause of the problem was that I had gotten a trailer hitch through my radiator at the beginning of winter. With the heater on high the car was keeping cool, but as soon as it warmed up outside I had cooling problems. Turned out that the 3 foot long trailer hitch that impaled my car also stopped one of the fans, which overloaded and blew the fuse that controlled it. As the aux fan was on its own fuse, everything seemed to be okay, but that 1st fan wasn't coming on. Replaced the fuse and all was well.

[Pontiac6ksteawd]

These cars only have 1 fan, and it only operates at one speed.

Sounds like the cooling passage ways in the engine are clogged.

[SilentWing]

That's what we were thinking Brian.... the reason I didn't mention it is only because everything in Prospeeder's system is new, but that could definately be his problem. On another note going 65mph down the road your fan shouldn't be on because IIRC it hinders more than it helps at that speed. Maybe another member like Brian or Don who own 6000's could tell you what their normal operating temps are all around the engine when it's hot so you have an idea of just how much over that you are.

[LordDurock]

These cars only have 1 fan, and it only operates at one speed.

Sounds like the cooling passage ways in the engine are clogged.

okay mine runs a two but what ever.
lets try some simple ones.

frist get your garden hose clean the fins on your rad and ac.... coming form farm/ ranch areas many times both get clogged with, grass, mud and other shit.
two when you put your rad in were the rubber pieces around the rad area good/ there. this will cause poor cooling as they act as a seal to force air though the rad.

sounds wierd that a car cant keep its self cool doing 65 (some seem to so okay with just road air flow no fan at those speeds)

[Prospeeder]

We pulled the radiator, washed it externally, ran water through it, no crud or anythign came out, it flows nicley. Washed off the condensor. The little rubber holders seem in good shape. Block passages huh, what can i do? Just dump a bottle of radiator cleaner in and drive around a few days and then try and flush it? when i did the heads i did notice some debris in the passages.....shit shit shit

[SilentWing]

I wonder... was it doing this before you fixed the lifters? I'm just wondering if some debris from the lifters might have blocked some of your passages? I'm shootin crap in the dark here so don't mind me, again I freggin hate cooling problems... You Could try to use a radiator cleaner and see if that works... maybe someone knows a trick I don't, but the only real way to completely and I mean completely clear passages in the heads would be to have them acid dipped/"hot tanked". Again I'd try the cheaper way first though, I just worry about your head gaskets taking the heat.

[Prospeeder]

Well im wondering if a got too much gasket material into the cooling passages when i was scraping gaskets. It seems like its been pushed over the edge since the lifters

[SilentWing]

Take the thermostat out, lower radiator hose off, and blast the block clean with a garden hose... try to flush everything out that you can think of. It's unlikely that little bits would do anything more than circulate through your system and end up in the bottom of the radiator, but if a bigger piece got through it could be blocking one of your passages or blocking the coolant from flowing past the thermostat. I know you already flushed your radiator, maybe... hopefully by flushing the heck of out of the block you can get some of the crap to come out if it is indeed gasket material blocking it up.

[Prospeeder]

Well, I did exactly that, filled it up with water and twice the reccomended coolant cleaner, disolved scale and deposits bla bla, ran the car for 30 minutes like it said, I let it sit overnight, flushed it this morning, bunch of shit came out, but its still exactly the same. BUT BUT, heres somthing that was odd. The system keeps burping air, and I cant seem to get it all out, at one point, it was sucking the upper hose compleltly shut! Could there be that big of a restriction in the block its making a huge vacuum on the upper hose, holy shit!!! whats going on with this thing, im about ready to pull the thermostat again and sell the fucker this is pissing me off. I even hosed off the radiator with cold water, and it made little difference, tihs is not a radiator problem. This is more...is there an acid type coolant flush, i recall hearing about 2 part stuff, acid and a nutralizer but its no longer found, any one know where they might find this stuff

[SilentWing]

When the water pump is running it's not capable of producing that kind of vacuum it's not a positive displacement water pump therefore it can't create a vacuum especially if there's air bubbles around the impellers it'll just not pump anything air or water if this happens it's called cavitation of the water pump. What that really sounds like on the compression stroke it's pushing gasses out which is where the endless bubbles are comming from and on the intake stroke on that same or another cylinder it's sucking air in from the cooling system and that's where the vacuum is comming from... if it actually is just a restriction in the block causing it to flatten the hose like that it would be the first time luke's ever seen a water pump that strong, usually they're not. I hate to say it and I'll wait for others to chime in too but it seems like head gaskets again :(

I wanted to add it doesn't seem like the radiator or cooling system has a problem, it seems like there's something wrong somewhere and if the exhaust gasses are getting into your cooling system it can cause all the issues you've been describing. Maybe they sold you a defective gasket?

[Prospeeder]

Now i got all the bubbles out, and i doesnt wanna suck the uppper hose shut anymore. Thats an improvment, and the whole way to work the temp fluctuated alot, from middle, 2/3, 3/4, 2/3 it seemed to wanna stay at now, its an improvment over 3/4 all the time i guess....

[SilentWing]

Well that's a good sign then, I'm relieved that it stopped sucking the hose down. I'm not sure if you want to do this or not depending on how much you want to throw into antifreeze, but if it's making an improvement you might want to go ahead and use something like the stuff that dissolves radiator scale... maybe someone else knows a product that'll work. But that's just what Luke would reccomend. With that being said before you go ahead and spend more money and time try and drive it around for a few days and see what happens. It sounds like blasting that crud out might have freed up your cooling passages.

[mechanizeddeath]

I'm interested to see the outcome of this. Coming from two vehicles with problematic head gaskets, I feel your pain. I sure hope you don't have to replace them again.

[Prospeeder]

well it is better, it fluctuated alot, but never got to 3/4 today. Yay, maybe ill try another couple bottles of super cleaner and leave it in a day or 2 then flush, lol

[Pontiac6ksteawd]

Sounds like a good plan... Drive around for a couple days with that shit in your system thou, with regular water, not antifreeze. Then when you go to flush it out, Pull the Thermostat out, put it back together, pull the radiator out, and flush it out by hand. Then flush the engine, both ways, with a garden house, using both the upper and lower hoses, switching back and forth.

See what you come up with!

[Prospeeder]

So it will be ok to drive around a few says with that cleaner in there? i suppose its not really acid based anymore huh.