# Car overheating, coolant resevoir boiling?



## Jacob (Jul 30, 2004)

Alright, it did this 2x and now i'm concerned.. I was letting my car run, warm up cus it was snowing and everything and I wanted to make sure it wasnt being affected. Well I go out to check on it and turn it off but I see the hood smoking and i'm hearing a whistling come from what sounded to be the engine. I pop the hood, and the left side is smoked up. It was coming from the coolant resevoir (I figured this most because more smoke came out when I uncapped it. Not only that but the cooling fluid - the antifreeze was a dark red, close to crimson. I checked my car and it was past the H, obviously overheating. There was also a spill of antifreeze all over the floor, not the green kind, but the dark brown wierd kind.

The following are pictures of what i'm seeing...




























a few more at http://216.22.254.11/fuckup/

Anyone kno wut could possibly be wrong and/or how to handle this?


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## Zen31ZR (Mar 24, 2004)

Is that car an automatic?


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## Jacob (Jul 30, 2004)

[email protected] said:


> Is that car an automatic?


yea automatic transaxle


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## Zen31ZR (Mar 24, 2004)

Jacob said:


> yea automatic transaxle


Well, one possibility is that the trans cooler is leaking into the coolant. You said the coolant was a dark red color, that's one indication right there. Another could be excessive rust, but you should have noticed it long before now, unless of course you don't check your coolant regularly. The red color is odd though, theres more than just coolant there , to be sure.


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## Matt93SE (Sep 17, 2003)

looks to me like a ton of rust got into the coolant. is there any fluid leaking on the floor of the car inside?

I doubt if you have any issues with the tranny causing this because of the obvious low temps outside. what I think may have happened is that you froze the water inside your block or hoses somewhere and blew apart a hose from the pressure when you started the car and the water pump tried to push the coolant somewhere.

now that the engine has cooled down, fill the radiator with fresh water and start the car again.. see if you can tell if it's leaking out anywhere.

also check your radiator cap and make sure the seal on it is still in good shape. if it's cracked or worn or has gunk built up on it, then buy a new one. they're about $10 at a parts store.


so first, find out where the thing is leaking, then fix it, or come back here with more pics and we'll do our best to help out.


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## Jacob (Jul 30, 2004)

Oh yea, there's no internal leaking.. and there isnt any leaking when the car runs... So by that i'm assuming the spill is from the resevoir when it overheats...


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## Zen31ZR (Mar 24, 2004)

Looks like something happened inside the motor to stir up that much rust. Or like I said before, the trans cooler. Check your trans fluid just to make sure. No point in not doing it, takes less than a minute. 
From the overheating it's likely something blocked up the radiator inlet (or outlet). Pull off the thermostat housing and see what it looks like in there. Did you feel around in the fluid that was on the ground , or in the bottle? Does it feel gritty? Or slippery and gooey.


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## Jacob (Jul 30, 2004)

Ok... i felt around in that brown liquid, it was like water, yet dry.. i guess gritty could b used to best describe it...

Well I was lookin a lil more under the hood.. That brown liquid was also coming from the radiator cap, seeing as there were brown drip stains all around it..


















well I tried to do a lil recalling and i had a antifreeze leak a couple of months back, i wrote the post about the hole in the hose in this forum a couple of months back. To keep the car running on some fluid, I had used water in place of the antifreeze cus i had nothing else in sight. After repairing the hose I can't recall buying antifreeze, completely forgetting about it.... So my assumption that the brown liquid is from the water I used before, and the engine can't cool off because there is noo antifreeze and the water isn't doin the job. 

So I bought the antifreeze n gave it a good load, and I put some in the resevoir. I took the car for a spin around a couple of blocks and it started going passed the middle on the temperature gauge (the C - H) on the dashboard. So I took it back home n popped the hood. 

I felt the upper radiator hose, and it was warm/hot to the touch. As well, at one of its connections, it was beginning to smoke. 










As well, smoke was coming from the radiator cap. I touched the radiator cap n felt it was barely reaching warm, so I stupidly took it off and the brown liquid began spewing out along with much more smoke.




















I'm going to be taking the thermostat housing off in a few minutes, I'm going to see if the thermostat is shot (but however the coolant has to be flowing if the hose was hot.....)


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## Jacob (Jul 30, 2004)

Ok.... the car seems to be running fine. Seems like there was just an inbalance of water and antifreeze. There car no longer smokes or spews antifreeze or over heats.

However another problem arose... Turns out my batter is no longer holding its charge. Car died a couple of times, I'm assuming the alternator is bad, because when I turned the car on with a new batter and removed the connection the car shut off.. The alternator obviously should keep it running. Soo I'm gonna have to check into that, it might be a voltage regulator or faulty wiring..


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## Matt93SE (Sep 17, 2003)

does the battery and brake light come on when you start the car? If not, then liekly the alternator is okay. take the car to a parts store and have it tested.

oh.. and NEVER open your cooling system when the car is hot!

and the rust you see around the radiator cap... that means your cap is leaking some.. buy a new one.

And having straight water in your cooling system will have definitely exacerbated this problem, except that it should have never boiled over with the outside temps as low as they were. (I drive my car in 100+ heat in heavy traffic with straight water and it still doesn't boil over!) I'd still check your water pump for damage and the rest of the system for blockage or leaks.

something is causing it to run hot and you need to figure that out.


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## Jacob (Jul 30, 2004)

Well it seems like there was a serious inbalance with antifreeze and water so i leveled it off and haven't had a problem since.. As for the alternator issue, i took it out and had it tested.. it WAS bad.. So I got it replaced and now my car runs..

However, theres another issue.. When the car idles, it usually remains under 1000rpms... As far as I kno it should stay at exactly 1000rpms or a lil higher.. Not sure why...


As well, I forgot to tighten the connectors for the battery terminals so when I went to turn my car on, the car obviously shut off because it didn't hav a connection. However, when I put it back, the radio no longer worked.. It displayed and everything, changes stations and all, however theres no sound-whatsoever.. A blown speaker would sound distorted and muffly, however, this is getting NO sound. idk what to think of it.. I checked the fuse box and the fuses seem to be fine. Any ideas?? I'm going to post this in a new thread because its a new issue and the old ones are kinda solved.


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