[Brenden1138]

Miles: 250k
Problem: Car overheats

What my dad and I have done to the car:
1. Replaced Intake Gaskets.
2. Changed Coolant.....Twice
3. Replaced Thermostat....Twice
4. Flushed Radiator
5. Had Radiator acid dipped to clean it.
6. Water Pump Replaced.

What we have found: We have replaced parts and the coolant is flowing like it should but the car is still over heating...we have two things left to try then the car is going to get scrapped if it does not work.. thing 1. Replace the CTS and 2. See if the coolant is getting suck somewhere in the heating system because the pipe leading to the heater core was hot but the return pipe was cold

Any ideas on what else it could be?

 

[Brenden1138]

How quickly is it overheating? Did you bleed the cooling system?

Pat

Sitting idle Under speeds of about 30-40MPH it does not overheat it stays at about 170 to 180 but anything over 40 and it climbs in to the red in about 30 seconds and yes we have bleed the cooling system.

 

[Brenden1138]

We took it in to a shop and they said the head gaskets were fine on it but if they were wrong would it be worth it to fix the car since it would be a 1,500$ repair? The car in great working order is only worth 1,600$ and we have already spent 300 in parts and I bought 2 new tires for 230$ and I bought The car for 600$ it so I am in deep with this car already.

 

[Brenden1138]

If you did the intake gaskets the heads are much farther into the tear down. I do head gaskets on 3.4s at least 6x a week. Here in my area head gaskets would run you maybe 40$ both sides and head bolts maybe 50$ or so...you wouldnt need to buy a kit considering you just replaced intakes....reuse them. But before jumping to conclusions make sure head gaskets are the issue

Sent from my LGLS675 using Tapatalk

I will be getting the kit to make sure but the shop we took it to said the heads were fine. We are going to replace the Coolant temp sensor first and flush the heater core to see what comes out of it considering the guy that did the Radiator said it was very clogged.

 

[Brenden1138]

So we replaced the Coolant temp sensor and that helped a bit but it red lined on us again after two days so we just put the Blue Devil Head Gasket stuff in it as the last thing we are going to try....every other part of the cooling system and anything that could cause overheating has been looked at.

 

[Brenden1138]

When it red lined, were you sitting still, or moving? How fast?

I'm wondering if you don't have an intermittent relay on the cooling fans. Did you swap out any fan relays in all this?

Doug

.

Moving at interstate speeds and no we have not switched out fan relays.

 

[Brenden1138]

It was a smooth climb in to the red. We replaced the temp sensor a few days ago and that helped a bit and we have a fail safe thermostat in it so it should be flowing even if it is stuck.

 

[Brenden1138]

As per previous posts the car did have alot of sludge in it and when we were putting in the blue devil the car was spitting up coolant with particle in it. I am thinking about once again draining coolant and disconnecting hoses and running water though the Block and Radiator and heater core again to try to flush more of it out. I really want the car to work out but if it keeps overheating ill have to sell it to someone that has the time and money to show it some Extensive TLC

 

[Brenden1138]

We had the radiator cleaned at a radiator shop and he said the overheating should stop or slow down after it was done which is has alittle bit but its still doing it, With the car still spitting up dirty coolant should i just keep replacing coolant till its clean? Or is Coolant with particles in it normal?

 

[Brenden1138]

Also if this helps when the car is red lined and i turn the heater on the air that is blown in to the cabin of the car is cold.

 

[Brenden1138]

Sadly I must report that its a head gasket problem and on a car that has 250K miles and a head gasket repair costing more then the car is worth and winter coming up I will be parting it out or selling it to someone that can take the time to fix it. Thank you to everyone that tried to help!

 

[Brenden1138]

I've had issues like this, especially with heater cores not flowing. I find that used cars over time have been filled with well water, or something besides distilled water and have cloged passages from iron and other things in non pure water over time. I go to Walmart and get the 38 cent a gallon drinking water from the water dispenser and use redline water wetter (from autozone) and 20% antifreeze in summer, and 50% in winter (in Tennessee) always using the water wetter as it increases the heat transfer of water better than antifreeze. there are several other things I do with cooling, but I feel you have a clogged block or head passage somewhere after reading about everything you have done. I just wonder if someone had previously put head gaskets on this block?

We are unsure if someone has done head gaskets on the car before or not. We did not dig that deep down as we were told it was a Intake Gasket problem.

 

[Brenden1138]

Its been abit and the thread is really old but i thought i post what we did to fix the overheat problem for everyone else that might have the same problem i did.......after everything we did in December the problem ended up being in the end a combo of just a very dirty cooling system we had to replace the clogged Radiator, Water Pump and the last thing causing it to overheat was a very very clogged heater core.