Ok here are the symptoms. I pretty much am always 1 bar over normal when i am driving 50 mph or less. When i stop i can go up to two bars over. When i drive over 50mph it is normal. I can turn on the heater to max and it will eventually drop to normal. My fans pretty much dont turn on unless it is two bars over or when i turn the car over.
What i have replaced so far:
Thermostat was replaced in febuary
fan switch on thermo housing was replaced last week
Radiator flush 2 weeks ago
Any ideas what else i can do? I am getting real frustrated with this and i cant drive around in the 95+ degree heat with the heater on much longer!
Is your Radiator cap good.. They hold the PSI in the whole system, if the cap isn't on correctly, or is no good it will not hold the pressure required to effectively cool your engine.
Check out your water pump. You may or may not hear a grinding noise yet, but if it is the water pump impeller you will hear it in time. On Preludes stock water pump, the impeller wheel eventually falls right off the shaft and lets the belt driven exterior gear rub against the housing. Even if you don't hear any grinding yet and can't find any other problem, it's definitly worth investigating. To tell if the Pump is no good you must take the belt off it and remove it.. When I took mine off the impeller wheel was resting (completely off the shaft) inside the housing.
Thats the basic things I would check out for now because it could be as simple at the radiator cap, or as a serious as the pump impeller falling off, or even a bad Head gasket.
Alright, if you have AC, turn on your AC and see if the condensor fan turns on. If it does, keep the AC on, and let the car heat up. See if the car still overheats, and/ or if the radiator fan comes on. I believe you changed temperature switch B. If your car does not overheat when you perform this check, then replace temperature switch A (the other switch). I am also assuming that your fans do not stay on after the car is shut down. If these tests turn up negative, you will want to check your fan control module. There is a quick test for this in the Helms manual. Good luck.
I replced the radiator cap and it dhasnt oer heated except for 1 time sitting at a stop light but i was only driving it for 20 minutes. My fans stay on after the car is off and the condensor fan works. Can you tell me what each of these switches control exactly ive never really been clear on it?
To put it simply (and this is a simple answer) Temperature switch B is for the radiator, while temp switch A is for the condensor. If temp switch A is not activated, then the radiator fan will not turn on.
ok so it is stil over heating slightly after i put the new radiator cap on though no where near as much. It is over heating whe the a/c is on so this leads me to believe it is not the fans since both of them are working when the a/c is on. Any ideas?
Have you taken a look at the radiator itself? Are the fins still pretty straight, or do they look all banged up? If your radiator isn't transferring heat efficiently, then that may be the cause of your problem. Also, as stated earlier, when was your water pump last replaced? Was it with the timing belt? It could also be that your temperature sensor has gone bad (not the temperature switch).
Water pump replaced 40k milea ago along with timing belt, radiator looks good. Whats the temp sensor? Are you talkng about the thing that takes the temp that is actually plugged into the block?
Yeah, that's the one. It's essentially a calibrated thermocouple that varies resistance in the circuit proportional to the temperature. Over time the thermocouple can deteriorate and bias the resistance values. Your indications may be showing that you are overheating when in reality you are not. You can test the resistance of the temperature sensor at varying temperatures and determine if your sensor is still good. Or, if you don't feel like testing it, you can always just buy a new one.
Ok someone explain this, why does my car over heat when the a/c is running and in turn the fans are moving but it will cool down after i turn the a/c off and the fans are not running, also it will over heat under normal driving and the only way to keep it cool is to run the heat at full blast or stay at 60
Well, the A/C is another heat exchanger that sits in front of the radiator. When you run the A/C the Condensor is hot, and the ambient air cools it down. Because the radiator is downstream of the condensor, it is now exposed to hotter than ambient air. This decreases the cooling efficiency of the radiator. If the cooling efficiency of the radiator is marginal to begin with, turning on the A/C will only exhagerate the problem. In addition to this, the engine is under more load when running the A/C. This also generates more heat within the engine. It sounds like you have a cooling efficiency problem, which means that either your radiator is bad, your water pump is going, or you have significant deposits in your cooling system. In any case, I would recommend flushing your system again, and really aggressively cleaning it. When you fill it back up, be sure to use distilled water, as it does not have any minerals in it. This will help to protect your coolant system. If I had to put money on the culprit though, I would point to the radiator.
Ya more and more i think ti is the radiator, the one that is in the car now is not stock and i think its a tad smaller than it should be. I have no way to confirm it so if you could tell me how i could tell if my radiator is smaller than stock i would appreciate it. Also how would i go about aggressively flushing it?
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