my aero tends to belch the water out of either the overflow resivior, or the rad cap. on bad burps the water makes it all the way out of the grill onto the front bumper.

thats where my coolant ends up. one place it puddles up and stays is in the power steering pump filler cap. if you see a puddle in there, you know that the coolant is being belched out by the air pressure.

 

make sure you radiator cap is good
i got really fooled by mine. under the rubber that seals the outside of the radiator in the cap is a brass spring plate that pushes against the rubber gasket. this plate had cracks in it and would alow air to be sucked back into the radiator. the over flow bottle would burp as you discribed

 

Nighthawk, the bars leak clogged everthing up. It's that stuff that looks like gravy, not the aluminum flake looking stuff, I get the two mixed up.

Anyways, liquid Dawn worked wonders for me. My old 64 run around 190 hot or cold, hauling but or not. The stuff that came out, you would not believe.

L8R

Nappers.

P.S. Aero, put some new headgaskets on her and keep her going.

Aaron

 

That's wierd, as Bars Leak comes factory installed in a lot of new cars.
The aluminum stuff ( Aluma Seal? ) has been know to plug up a few radiators and heater cores when people let the car sit for weeks with that stuff in it.
I guess any sealer might do the same if the cooling system was half way plugged up to start with.
I run bars leak in everything I own.

Now the liquid dawn is a new one for me. I'll have to try that one. Thanks for that tip.

 

Well, there's no fool like an old fool.

Earlier today I was driving around town, not particularly hot today, and the temp gauge keep wanting to go up. Man, I just filled that coolant reservoir the other day, it can't be sucking it down that fast. Went to refill the coolant reservoir and it was already full - so was the radiator. But the radiator and engine were a lot hotter than usual. I also noticed there were no bubbles rising up the radiator neck. What the heck? How can there be no bubbles - I'm supposed to have a bad head gasket - right?

The last time the engine began overheating the fan clutch was bad. Could it be the same problem? Nah, I just replaced it, what, last year, year before last. What! 4 years ago! I tried turning the fan blade and there almost no resistance.

Yep, a bad fan clutch was allowing the engine to overheat and all the small bubbles I noticed that day were actually the same ones you see in the bottom of your pots when water begins to boil - which is also why they had that effervescent look to them.

I feel really foolish for overlooking something so obvious and simple. Again, by the time I got the new fan clutch and the old one out, I was still not sure it was bad. Since the old one had cooled down it now had dang near as much resistance as the new one. But, I replaced it and sure enough, the difference was like night and day. And, everything is so quiet up front as well. I guess over time, you get used to that fan roar and treat it as normal.

I now think copper's suggestion of leaking manifold gaskets may be the remaining key to this puzzle.

 

He he Aero:

We're all getting old and senile That's why I did the electric fan conversion just to get out of the "bad fan-clutch/cracked-fan" cycle. So do the bubbles reappear after the new fan clutch?

 

copper,
No, there were no bubbles the next time I checked - before changing out the fan clutch. I was looking at the problem backwards, thinking the low coolant was overheating the engine when in fact, it was the bad fan clutch causing the problem and the coolant issue was a separate problem. The day I saw all the bubbles the ambient temp was 104 degrees. With the radiator cap off (no pressure plus high altitude) the engine was overheated enough to actually boil the coolant which created all the tiny bubbles.

I was so pleased with the results of the new fan clutch, I ran out and bought some new rear springs. I guess I'll be around a while longer.

 

Built Ford Tough

 

sometimes it's the simple things that cause us the most grief.

 

Which rear springs did you get?

I've noticed that my 97 is starting to get just a wee bit low in the rear.

Aren't there several different rates to choose from? My van has 5-7 people in it on a regular basis so I may need some that are sligltly stiffer.

Very GLAD to hear your cooling problems are fixed!!!

 

[QUOTE=Berry]Which rear springs did you get?

I've noticed that my 97 is starting to get just a wee bit low in the rear.

Aren't there several different rates to choose from? My van has 5-7 people in it on a regular basis so I may need some that are sligltly stiffer.

QUOTE]
Berry, I used a vari-rate spring on the rear of my 90, I run 5-7 people only once in awhile, normal it's just 1 or 2 of use in it. These springs seem to be working good, no more of my wife saying that the van is hitting bottom anymore with all of her co-workers in it.