Zx2 Coolant Leak
 

My cousin has a 2000 Ford Escort ZX2 and the radiator was run bone dry. Once coolant was put back in it ran fine but the gauge showed the motor running hot after a while. The fan does not sound like it's kicking in and her father cannot see any leaks while the motor is running. So I figured I would ask my fellow Ford Gurus to see what can be the problem. Thanks.

I would suspect that the system needs a good burping. This has the electric fan?

The fan is not kicking on. Off the top of my head I thought it could either be one of three things:

1. temperature sending unit
2. bad fuse/short
3. motor or clutch is bad for electric fan.


He told me there were no apparent leaks and that he ran the car for a 1/2 hour and the fan did not kick on. That's how I drew up my three possibilities.

Out of curiousity, and not to sound too stupid, but what did you mean "good burping"?

To burp it means to get all the air out of it. It is very easy to get an air pocket in the system when refilling from empty. This batch of air then blocks the flow of coolant so that the temputure sending unit doesn't know there is a bunch of hot coolant in the system.

Turn on the AC and see if that gets the fan to go. If it doesn't then I would suspect a bad electric motor or a short some place. The fan is supposed to come on anytime the AC or defrost is used.

To burp the system, elevate the front half of the car so that the radiator is the highest part of the cooling system. Leave the cap off. If any air is burped, add coolant and repeat (after it cools down).