Okay I have an 88 turbocoupe it's getting hot really really quick. At first it would get close to the red then come back down. Now it's not coming down at all and gets hot after a 5 minute drive.i thought it was the t-stat replaced that as well as the water pump while I was in there. Flushed coolant didn't look that bad. I've also replaced the coolant temp sensor. I've also noticed that the fan and radiator do not belong in the car. I don't know what it's from but it's zip tied in also changed oil and it looked fine. I found someone with an electric fan and radiator out of a fox mustang for less than $200 would it work in my car?
Does it overheat at freeway speeds? If so, its not the fan.
No it doesn't it actually runs alright at highway speeds. I drove it all the way from Wisconsin to illinois and it was fine on the highway but would get hot in town. I didn't think it was kicking on so I just ran a power wire straight to the battery so its always on and it still gets hot.
Probably a bad fan or something blocking airflow then.
When i pulled my radiator back, i had weeds that had grown between the radiator and ad from when it sat in the previous owners back yard. It didn't overheat after, but ran a ton cooler after i cleaned all that out.
Undo the two 3/8 bolts on the radiator tie down brackets next time you go to a car wash and hose down the radiator inbetween.
Probably a bad fan or something blocking airflow then.
When i pulled my radiator back, i had weeds that had grown between the radiator and ad from when it sat in the previous owners back yard. It didn't overheat after, but ran a ton cooler after i cleaned all that out.
Undo the two 3/8 bolts on the radiator tie down brackets next time you go to a car wash and hose down the radiator inbetween.
when your running again and your dash is saying hot, turn off car and then fell down the radiator top to bottom everywhere you can physically reach.
half the core could be blocked off or something,, at least this will tell you if the rad is circulating all its individual channels.
next with a cold engine,-remove rad cap then start car, if you see water flowing then tstat is staying open,, some people are easily tricked and put the tstat in backwards as well.
Have you looked down into your radiator? Mine over heats quickly in town because the passage ways in the radiator are blocked by hard water build up. I have knocked off the build up I can see up top but I'm sure it is like that all the way down. Saving up for a new one.
Jcassity I did what you said the driver side of the radiator is cool and the passenger side by the upper radiator hose was hot then cool then hot.so it's the radiator?
Sounds like its at least partially blocked to me.
The radiator on my cars has always flowed passenger to drivers side, top to bottom. It should get progressively cooler with no hot(warmer) spots as it gets to the drivers side.
Nobody seems to have answered your Mustang question. You CAN use a Mustang radiator and fan, but don't use the 4cyl radiator, use the V8 radiator. Both cars may be 4cyl, but yours has greater cooling needs.
If your car is mostly stock get one of these parts store replacement radiators: http://www.oreillyauto.com/site/c/detail/MHT1/433556/01386.oap?year=1987&make=Ford&model=Thunderbird&vi=1430183&ck=Search_C2465_1430183_3405&pt=C2465&ppt=C0331 It should work great. Radiators do clog up over time. My factory radiator finally decided it had enough after 25 years and wouldn't cool the car at highway speed. Replaced it with a aluminum radiator with 2 one inch rows and it's been fine since.
It's completely stock it's an auto :(
http://www.latemodelrestoration.com/item/SVE-RADKIT79M/1986-93-Mustang-50L-Complete-Aluminum-Radiator-Upgrade-Kit I was looking at this. I plan on doing a t5 swap fmic more boost later down the road
You don't need the hoses or thermostat housing from that kit. Plus the fans in that kit suck. Your stock fans (operating properly) are much better.
I thought the hoses are the same? They say you need that housing for the duel fan setup or at least that's what I read in the reviews. So I should just piece something together if their is a fan you recommend let me know.
I've got a double speed fan off of a taurus hooked up using only low speed and it is cooling my car while its 100-105 outside. For $12 i think i did okay.
If you don't plan on making it a full out race car just get a radiator from AutoZone or oriellys Like thunderjet said
I'm running one of these and it cool just fine on my car and were getting 105+ degree weather right now
Yeah I'll probably jut buy that O'Reilly radiator. Then get that dual fan it's only $20 more. One of those fans flows better than the single one O'Reilly sells.
Okay I just replaced the radiator with one from O'Reilly. The gauge was still Ettinger up I'm the red. I took an infared thermometer like what you use to tell if food is at the right temperature pointed at the intake where the sensor is and it was at 180. The radiator by the upper hose was at 194. Isn't this normal? What does the gauge use is it the sensor if so I just replaced that.
ok,,
with a bone cold motor, remove radiator coolant fill cap
start car
does water move?- if yes then your tstat has failed or thermal'd
if no............
then once upon a time not too long ago someones name who shall not be spoken posted pics of water pump impeller blades that were basically corroded or eaten away.
We all then learned of a troubleshooting step to verify how many volts are inside the coolant.. yes im serious... never knew of such a thing till I read up in my manual.
long story short.... water pump has to be next step but...
-check for milky stuff in the oil and if yes - head gasket
-if no- then>>>
do you have a compression tester and if yes, take individual cylinder readings., especially if you ocassionally have some odd smoke out the tail end.
I've replaced the entire cooling system. Coolant temperature sensor, coolant temperature sender, t-stat, water pump and the radiator. I wired up the fan so it's always on because it wouldn't kick on sometimes. I flushed the coolant it looked okay and changed the oil and it looked normal. I'm going to do a compression test in the next few days and if that checks out it has to be the gauge itself maybe it is running cool but the gauge isn't reading the resistance from the sender like it's supposed too.
Could be the irv in the dash then. My gauges read funky and would randomly read zero. Had a bad wire crimp on the ignition switch.
Make sure your electric fan is running in the right direction. I bought a mustang that had an electric fan conversion that was hooked up backwards. It stayed moderately warm while stationary, but when you got moving it would get hot (since the fan was trying to blow out the grille instead of suck through).
Irv? I'll check that out as well coogarxr before I drop $160 on a freaking temperature gauge.
I finally did the compression test all of the cylinders were in the 139-142 area. So it's not the head gasket. I was wondering if the heater core was clogged would that cause it to overheat?
What he's trying to say is IVR. Its the voltage regulator on the back of the cluster. If it's malfunctioning, it would skew the bias of the gauge (a couple of them IIRC) causing a false reading. Sometimes high, sometimes low, other times the gauges go completely dead.