Re: Overheating on the Florida Turnpike.....YIPPEE!

From: Andy Levy (andylevy@bigfoot.com)
Date: Thu Dec 28 2000 - 18:15:55 EST


Are you sure the system was completely filled, and all air pockets got
bubbled out of it?

Jack Hilton wrote:
>
> Well, here's the tale:
>
> I drove from my house in Newnan, GA (Suburb of Atlanta) to Hollywood,FL
> to visit family for the holiday weekend. This is about a 675 mile
> trip.On the way down there, I found out I have a cooling problem.
>
> The truck has never overheated before. I drove it all the way down to my
> second fuel stop, which was at the Okahumpa Service Plaza on the
> turnpike. This is the first Plaza as you are going South on the
> turnpike. I always keep one eye on the guages and never saw anything on
> the temp that said it was fluctuating or anything.I filled up and left
> the plaza, and about 5 minutes down the road, the damn thing starts to
> heat very quickly, to the eventual point of the "Check Guages" light
> coming on and it pushing 240 on the scale. I pulled over and turned it
> off, and I raised the hood. When I looked under the hood, I found that
> my overflow bottle was boiling over. I also found that the upper hose,
> as well as the bottom, was very tight and very hot. I then found that
> the radiator cap and the radiator itself were cold to the touch. This
> told me that the coolant was not circulating, and because I had
> installed a NAPA 180 stat, it must have been that. So I let it sit for a
> minute, and then started it up, and after initially starting to heat up
> again, it finally opened up and cooled off back down to normal for the
> 180 stat. It stayed normal the rest of the trip, until I hit the
> toll-booth and as I sat in line, the temp started to creep up again. I
> turned on the heat wide open. After that it cooled off again. I made it
> to my nephew's house in Hollywood and immediatly got a new NAPA 180 stat
> and put it in. I drove the truck pretty hard ovr the next couple of days
> trying to get it to heat up again, but it seemed fine. I leave Hollywood
> on Tuesday afternoon and took I-95 North to Ft.Pierce to jump on the
> Turnpike. I stopped for gas in Ft.Pierce. and damn if it didn't do it
> again! It started boiling over after I cut it off, the hoses were hot
> and tight,and the radiator was cool to the touch. I let it cool for
> about 20 minutes, then jumped in it and went. It started heating up
> again as I got on the turnpike, but all of the sudden, just as before,
> it would cool down rapidly to normal. The truck contiued to do this
> every time I stopped the engine for gas, or anything else.
> Here is what I figure:
>
> There is definitely some type of blockage in either the block or the
> radiator. From what I do not know, but I did just have that Belly Pan
> Gasket fixed recently. Whatchya wanna bet that when they did that that
> some crap went down into one of the cooling passages and is jammed up
> somewhere ? This would explain the situation. As the truck heats up, it
> finally builds up a *LOT* of pressure as it approaches the 260 mark, and
> that pressure pushes past the blockage. Whenever I stop the truck and
> the flow stops, it allows the blockage to re-seat itself, and the cycle
> starts again.
>
> Also, it doesn't do this riving around town or back and forth to work.
>
> Jack

-- 
-andy

http://home.twcny.rr.com/andylevy/ --- andylevy@bigfoot.com ------------------------------------------------------------- modesty, n.: Being comfortable that others will discover your greatness -------------------------------------------------------------



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 11:58:08 EDT