One more thought - if you have a smooth hose on the lower radiator connection, make sure there is a spring inside. The spring prevents the lower hose form collapsing under suction from water pump at higher engine speeds.
Have no idea about cost of engine work - sorry.

 

Excellent advice.

 

Try connecting the two coolant hoses going into the heater coil.See if that helps.

 

O.K. let's start from the beginning. the truck sat for 1 year after minor front end wreck. Radiator was replaced, filled, and the truck sat for a year. I replaced front clip, battery, plugs and wires, filters, oil, rotor, dist. cap, and a few others. Truck starts and runs good, lots of power. Idles smooth, no missing. No smoking, no oil in water, no water in oil, no odor of coolant, Top and bottom hoses new, bypass hose new, tsat 195 deg new and installed properly, fan clutch (extreme duty) new. Start engine and sit idling - overheats in ten minutes with outside temp around 100 deg. Start engine and drive up the mountain - overheating about the same time maybe little faster. Starting engine from cold, about ten minutes stat opens pressures top hose and it gets hot, and with rad cap off water will flow steady out of rad mouth ( not spurting just steady flow). Removed water pump last nite- it looks like new, turns free. I flushed through rad, then through heater core hose coming off water pump. Flow was good through rad and through core and engine . Flushed till I saw clear water. I'm going to put everything back together tonite and see what happens. But I dont have much hope. Sorry so long but just figured I'd put as much info out as I could.

 

What leads you to beleive you are overheating, what symptoms do you have besides the guage? The guages are not the best quality and can be bad.

Did you bleed the air out of the system? (I'm not sure if you can on your year truck but worth looking into)

Which coolant are you using? Is 60/40 ok for it? The preston I used last says it has to be 70/30 minimum. Also if you didn't drain the block of water and put in the mix then you are way under 60/40. The block on my 5.o will hold almost enough for me to use prestone straight and end up with a 70/30 mix

Do you know if any radiator stop leak was used? Like Bar's maybe?

Is the clutch fan kicking in and spinning in the correct direction to draw air inwards?
(I've seen fans put on backwards....)


When you had the water pump out, you said it turned freely but did you verify that it was actually turning the inpeller? I've seen some old dodges where the impeller broke free, it looked fine but didn't turn if you held it and turned the shaft.

 

Check out the 3rd post.
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/s...d.php?t=375870

Maybe try a kitchen thermometer in the radiator cap opening. Most of mine went bad where they showed cool, but it happens.

Just see if the retun water really is that hot.

BTW what engine do you have? You mentioned a bypass hose so i guess it's not an I-6. Did the truck get run after the new radiator was installed? Are you sure it is the right one?

If you had a 460 using a small block non A/C radiator, that would do it.

 

Popa Tim , I noticed while standing in front of truck hot air was blowing on me. I removed the fan, it was on correctly but I turned it around anyway. It blew out the front even harder. The fan rotates ccw looking at it from front of truck. I have flushed with Gunk rad flush and measured coolant/water ratio to 50/50.

 

which engine do you have?

 

[QUOTE=Popa Tim]which engine do you have?[/QUOTE
1989 f150 xlt supercab 4x4 with 5.8l efi, auto trans.

 

I think my 88 turns clockwise.

Turning the fan around it will still blow the same direction, you just change efficiency.

 

Maybe after sitting there for a long while you have rust sludge
diposites in the block which would allow water to flow but not
in the areas that may count, just a suggestion for ya.

 

Mine turns counter-clockwise because of the belt configuration. I understand some of the newer fords turn clockwise. I would think the 88's and 89's should be the same but seems like they change things every five minutes.

 

That's from memory. The truck is 65 miles away. But it seems clockwise.

Either way, you should feel air being pulled into the grill from the front.

 

Yeah, I can't believe I didn't catch this for a couple of weeks, but I look on the good side. I've completely re-worked my cooling system now so I shouldn't have to worry about that for awhile. This is really a good lesson for everyone, especially non-mechanics like me. Always, always, always check ALL the simple things first. I think I'll sit down and create a new thread explaining everything from start to finish so maybe I can keep someone from having the same problems as I did. Thanks, everyone, for all the help.

 

I'm really looking forward to what it was...
belt on wrong?