As the title says, I’m still trying to wrap my head around this one… I’ll try to keep the back story/details as brief as possible.
89 7mge stock. Bought the car one year ago which is when I replaced the head gasket (and it was done properly). Never given me trouble until recently.
Replaced the water pump back in July, was making a high-pitched whining sound. Was fine after that.
Now back in September, the bird cage light started flickering and a couple days later, was on solid. Rad was still full so topped up overflow tank. A week later, it came on again. I noticed the smell of coolant, but couldn’t really see where it was coming from and if there were any drips on the ground, they were towards the front of the engine, but rarely were there any drips to be seen. Not every time, but often, I could hear coolant sloshing through the heater core after cold starts, but it took a while to stop doing this after doing the head gasket, so I figured the system is still bleeding out air pockets from when I did the water pump. Topped up overflow again. Did that maybe once more and since then it has actually been fine.
Until this morning. It’s about -7degrees C. Started it and left it to warm up. As many of you are familiar, when you set the auto climate control to a warmer temp, it doesn’t start blowing any air until the engine is warmed up. Well I go back out to go to work after 5-10 mins of leaving it idling and there’s a green puddle under the front and I can see it running out from the overflow. >_O
I usually park with the car on a bit of a hill so the nose is facing down-hill. I pull it forward onto level ground and it stops pouring out. The temp gauge reads half way up the scale which is normal for this car, yet the auto climate control has not yet started blowing air. I turn on the defrost manually and it doesn’t start blowing hot air for a few minutes yet, but also never heard any air bubbles passing through the heater core. When I start driving the temp gauge drops to ¼, then after a few mins returns to half. Air bubble in the system I figure.
Half way to work (which is only a 10-15 min drive) the bird cage comes on solid…
So now I’m trying to figure out what is going on. I just changed the oil last week and there was zero evidence of coolant in it. Also the coolant itself is clean. No oil droplets of chocolate milk. Just clear green.
Wondering if it’s a combination of issues between a faulty thermostat and or faulty rad cap. I’m going to test the rad cap first as it’s the easiest thing to replace.
Sorry for the novel of a post, just wanted to give as much detailed info as possible. Anyone else have any suggestions/ideas?
Thanks,
Mike.
89 7mge stock. Bought the car one year ago which is when I replaced the head gasket (and it was done properly). Never given me trouble until recently.
Replaced the water pump back in July, was making a high-pitched whining sound. Was fine after that.
Now back in September, the bird cage light started flickering and a couple days later, was on solid. Rad was still full so topped up overflow tank. A week later, it came on again. I noticed the smell of coolant, but couldn’t really see where it was coming from and if there were any drips on the ground, they were towards the front of the engine, but rarely were there any drips to be seen. Not every time, but often, I could hear coolant sloshing through the heater core after cold starts, but it took a while to stop doing this after doing the head gasket, so I figured the system is still bleeding out air pockets from when I did the water pump. Topped up overflow again. Did that maybe once more and since then it has actually been fine.
Until this morning. It’s about -7degrees C. Started it and left it to warm up. As many of you are familiar, when you set the auto climate control to a warmer temp, it doesn’t start blowing any air until the engine is warmed up. Well I go back out to go to work after 5-10 mins of leaving it idling and there’s a green puddle under the front and I can see it running out from the overflow. >_O
I usually park with the car on a bit of a hill so the nose is facing down-hill. I pull it forward onto level ground and it stops pouring out. The temp gauge reads half way up the scale which is normal for this car, yet the auto climate control has not yet started blowing air. I turn on the defrost manually and it doesn’t start blowing hot air for a few minutes yet, but also never heard any air bubbles passing through the heater core. When I start driving the temp gauge drops to ¼, then after a few mins returns to half. Air bubble in the system I figure.
Half way to work (which is only a 10-15 min drive) the bird cage comes on solid…
So now I’m trying to figure out what is going on. I just changed the oil last week and there was zero evidence of coolant in it. Also the coolant itself is clean. No oil droplets of chocolate milk. Just clear green.
Wondering if it’s a combination of issues between a faulty thermostat and or faulty rad cap. I’m going to test the rad cap first as it’s the easiest thing to replace.
Sorry for the novel of a post, just wanted to give as much detailed info as possible. Anyone else have any suggestions/ideas?
Thanks,
Mike.
