another dumb one for those willing to help out a FNG like me. my car has sat for 10+ yrs, only being driven 100 miles per year. now i got it, and i have been driving the wheels off it for the last week. problem is, it ran hot!! i have already decided to redo the radiator(thanks to the advice of some friendly hambers) and im also replacing everything else that has to do with the cooling department. EVERYTHING! i was taking the rad out of the car tonight.... the front hose had 1/4" flakes of rust and 1/8" little nuggets of rust rolling around inside the hose(found it when i took it off radiator side)!! the rust is from the wire in the radiator hose!! not even a toddlers palms worth. not a tun of it?? but enough to worry. first 2 rows of the wire look really bad though. my questions are.... did i hurt my motor with the rust from the hose? ran hot for 10 minutes...maybe. 210-215ish?? is there anyway for that rust to have gotten inside my motor?? oil looks/smells fine? water was rusty looking, but it wasnt low on water and it had coolient? thermastate is stuck, but its in one peice?? not sure if its closed or open...either way, there is only surface rust on it?! housing was fine too. no build up of rust. how do i check to see if the rust hurt the motor?? is there a way the rust pieces got inside motor?? i looked in the thermastate housing hole(inside the intake)and it had some surface rust, nothing major. as stated, oil was fine. no bad smells. not a pile of oil in the water when drained?? what do i do know? now that it did run hot and there might be small peices of rust somewhere? is there a way to flush motor?? if so, how? do i need to? how from home? motor is out of 1978 buick electra....its a 6.6 ltr/403 olds engine. completely rebuilt 10 yrs ago along with ******. never driven since. has RV cam, if that matters?? dont know why it would. car runs great other then this!! thanks again for everyones help. its nice to have people that you can ask questions to and get real answers. Chris
well my thinking is, if rust flakes from you cooling system got into your motor, like into the oil, that you would have alot bigger problems then some crud in your oil. if you are in a warm place i would just run plain water in my radiator for a while then pull the botom hose and drain it and keep doing that for a while maybe every other day, then when it is running out of there clean, refill it with properly mixed stuff, and get all new hoses to go with your new radiator. as for running it hot for 10 minutes i would not worry to much about that at all, unless your motor siezed up / quit on you because of it so basically i would say you dont have anything to worry about.
You wouldn’t have hurt the motor with the rust or that temp. As you said you are replacing all parts to the cooling system there is nothing to worry about, the only things the rust could hurt are the radiator, thermostat (If you live in somewhere hot leave it out), and the water pump. With the water pump replaced there is nothing else to hurt really. You do need to flush the motor out, and well though. Best way to do that would be to get a foot length (There about’s) of radiator hose. Make a br*** (Or similar material) plug up that you can hose clamp into one end. In the plug drill two holes and solder in a tube for a water hose and one for a high pressure air line. Hose clamp them on well! In the air line you need a valve that you can turn on and off gradually. Now take this to the car, clamp it onto the bottom radiator spout on the motor and fill the block with water. Now turn on the air and flush out the water, start the air slowly over 5-10 seconds to full pressure. If you let it go all at once you would only blow the hoses off the bottom. Keep doing this until nothing but clear water comes out of the motor. It’s now nice and clean. Be warned though, water goes EVERYWHERE! Do this somewhere that won’t be stained by rusty water, like on the side of your street in the gutter rather than in your drive way. My family owns 3 radiator shops, so if you need any help with this drop me a line. You will get dozens of replies (Especially about the thermostat!*) most of them will be flat out wrong. DOC. *No matter what they say, if you live somewhere warm with no danger of freezing weather you don’t need a thermostat. They are simply there to stop water flow until the motor warms up. You don’t need it in there to regulate flow rate, that is a wives tale.
I take it your not that mechanically minded? I'm not being rude, but just trying to ascertain what level you want your info on? personally I wouldn't worry. To me it seems that your car has sat for a long time, neglected even. you come along and are making it do what it was meant to do. BUT in the process what you have done is cause the motor to get to its operating temp for longer periods than it has for years. over the years the water in the water jackets in the motor has rusted the block and eaten the spiral wire in the hoses ( normal) so now this rust breaks free and clogs your radiator again, normal to happen. so get your radiator recored or rodded, then before you put it back in just flush the block with a hose as best you can from the top hose and then push the water up from the bottom hose, to this until you get clean water. if it was me this is what I would do when you have done the above and gotten your radiator back, others will do different. get a pair of your wife, girlfriend or own stockings, cut the toes out, so you have 5" of stocking that could hold a tennis ball as such, then push the toe end into the top tank hose outlet and fold the remaining over the outlet then put your new hose on. what this does if form a 'radiator sock' you can buy these comercially but this is the tight **** method. fill the car with water and run like this for I don't know a few hundred miles. then check the sock to see if it has caught some rust. keep doing this until your happy that you have caught all the rust then you can leave it there if you like to protect your radiator and fill with your coolant of choice, if that is what you run. I do this with my flatheads, helps save your radiator from clogging up with rust from an old block. hope this helps.
Every olds motor i ever had ran hot! i dunno why they just seem to. i wouldn't remove the thermostat completely it can make it overheat too. you could put a new one in it,and i have seen guys put like 2-3 1/8th holes in them with a drill just so there is always flow. First thing i personally would do is remove the thermostat and flush the **** out of the block and have the rad done(replace or WELL flushed by a shop) then do as stated above.
The way I told him to flush it is how it is done at a shop. now................... The Thermostat is there to let the motor warm up to operating temp quicker, as I said in my first post. Remove it and the motor will now take longer to warm up but it WILL NOT MAKE IT OVER HEAT! The more HP you are making the less restriction you want in water flow. It is only going to flow at the rate that the water pump can push it reguardless of the thermostat or no thermostat. If you have the right pulley sizes the water will flow at the correct rate to cool the motor.
The thermostat is there to stop the flow of water to allow the radiator do its work. It doesn't just allow the engine to get to operating temp and then stay open. It opens and closes to allow the coolant in the radiator to cool and then opens again to allow the cooled coolant to move into the engine, then it closes again. This can be seen while watching your temp gauge, the temp should rise and fall....not always by a lot...but it should cycle!!! I removed mine for a short period and the engine continually ran hot, and it did overheat. I replaced the thermostat and re-cored the radiator. I also put a shroud on it and now it always runs 180-190 unless we are in stopped traffic for a long time.
all great advise as always, but not for nothing, but in a car that sat for 10 years, don't you think you should have done all of this before driving the wheels off it? we've all bought cars that sat for a while, and usually the rule of thumb is to go over the entire car to make sure it's gonna be roadworthy and safe. some times by not doing this you can do more damage than good. now get to work!
Agreed with autobodyed. Also, I run gutted thermostats in my flathead when I first started it. It is true that restriction to an extent will aid in keeping the water where it needs to be just a little longer to soak in the heat and dispense it in the radiator. How much I can't say, but I do believe that little restriction will make it run cooler. All I did was cut the bottom out of the thermostat, pull the flapper or plunger out as carefully as I can without damaging the ring too much, and put the gutted ring in place under the thermostat cover/neck. When I do major work, I will definitely put the correct thermostats in it, but for now, I was doing major flushes with the stuff from the store and doing a lot of water changes. I didn't want to have a piece of rusty junk getting caught in a thermostat and screw something up, so I am running the gutted stats for now. Still flushing, but after 5-6 total flushes, mostly clean.
i shouldnt smoke, drink, or eat red meat either?? what does that have to do with anything?? j/king. i did do a some things, not the cooling areas though. brakes and whatever. live and learn.....now thats one thing i am doing, LEARNING!! thanks to everyone for yall helps! oh, if i did run a thermastat, what temp? 165? 180? thanks again!
I had an overheating problem as well. Turned out I had that same wire inside the hoses had made its way through the cooling systym and get stuck up inside one of my heads. Had to have it rebuilt and i went through the radiatoras well. Have not had a problem since.
and test the thermostat in a pot of water and a thermometer, sometimes that three dollor part is way off
Is there enough of the coiled wire inside the hose to prevent it from collapsing, or is it still structurally sound? good luck
I've used powder dishwashing detergent in my system to clean it out. It doesn't suds up like other detergent. Learned this trick from a radiator person. Flush the system with clean water. Then add a cup of detergent, run for a while. Flush it out with more water. Once clear you are ready to drive coool.
Well with all said I would flush out the block with a good cleaner . If that was rusted that bad , there is a good chance the inside of the freeze plugs are rusted too and won't take long to leak ! make sure you open the block drain plugs and look inside there also if you can. You can dig out some rust from there too . I would replace ALL the hoses and flush the heater core out too . Replace the thermostat and belts . You should do all this before you install the newly rebuilt radiator . Also install a new radiator cap ! Fill with GOOD QUALITY ant-freeze . That should do it but keep an eye in the radiator to see if you get anymore **** in it .
Doc, I have to disagree, and say Bigolds is right. The thermostat needs to be inline, to 'keep' the coolant in the radiator a sufficiant amount of time to cool.
You might need to take a look at the head gaskets. I had a 403 Olds in my '79 Trans Am and was told that the 403 Olds motor has no water jacket between the center two cylinders on each side which can lead to overheating problems. I don't know that is accurate but Maybe some research is in order. Ed
that wire in the hose keeps it from collapsing under suction of w/p...your hose may have been going flat and restricting flow causing your overheating...replace what you feel necessary and clean out best you can and all will probably work fine
Replace all the hoses. If they are as old as you say, then are going to fail. They always fail at the wrong time and the wrong place. Be safe, let someone else be sorry.
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