issues with cooling system

[Strato_54]

A few months back i had to move my pathy out of storage and up to my shop so i can work on it as it had been sitting for a few years maybe more with out being ran or even touched. When we got there it had over heated so bad you could feel it inside the cab. The coolant had disappeared totally... The next day we had filled the engine with water and ran it for a good half hour or more and it didnt even lose a drop. All is good now. It runs and it doesnt over heat. BUTTTTT. The system does not pressurize. I have not had too much with engines to know if all systems will pressurize or not. The vehicle does not over heat as it runs flawless and the coolant gauge shows half way when it has been running for a while. The top rad hose gets extremely hot to the touch (as i think it should) but i can squeeze it like nothing. Almost as if there is nothing in there even when its cold. Is it supposed to be this soft or is it supposed to be more firm? Also opn a side note a little away from topic. This shouldnt be a big issue but when ever i press the gas and let off of it, as the rpms go down it almost jumped up 1 line to about 1200 from 1100 then it idles. Is that normal or is that just something small that doesnt need attention? 

Edited July 11, 2019 by Strato_54

[Manik]

A few months back i had to move my pathy out of storage and up to my shop so i can work on it as it had been sitting for a few years maybe more with out being ran or even touched. When we got there it had over heated so bad you could feel it inside the cab. The coolant had disappeared totally... The next day we had filled the engine with water and ran it for a good half hour or more and it didnt even lose a drop. All is good now. It runs and it doesnt over heat. BUTTTTT. The system does not pressurize. I have not had too much with engines to know if all systems will pressurize or not. The vehicle does not over heat as it runs flawless and the coolant gauge shows half way when it has been running for a while. The top rad hose gets extremely hot to the touch (as i think it should) but i can squeeze it like nothing. Almost as if there is nothing in there even when its cold. Is it supposed to be this soft or is it supposed to be more firm? Also opn a side note a little away from topic. This shouldnt be a big issue but when ever i press the gas and let off of it, as the rpms go down it almost jumped up 1 line to about 1200 from 1100 then it idles. Is that normal or is that just something small that doesnt need attention? 

Id clean the throttle body, pull the idle air control valve and clean that port as well. Mine used to do that, but, I did what I mentioned before as well as replacing a few rotten vacuum lines, now shes all good..

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[Strato_54]

21 minutes ago, Manik said:

Id clean the throttle body, pull the idle air control valve and clean that port as well. Mine used to do that, but, I did what I mentioned before as well as replacing a few rotten vacuum lines, now shes all good..

Sent from my LG-H700 using Tapatalk
 

The thing is though the car has 90k kilometres on it. So it hasn’t had much time to have @!*% happen to it. The idle thing is what ever honestly but it’s mainly the pressurizing thing I care about. As long as my engine gets water and stays cool with out pressure I’m cool with it for now. But if this is going to lead to damage later on I’d like to know what I gotta do 

 

edit: I should mention it’s a 97 

Edited July 11, 2019 by Strato_54

[onespiritbrain]

you should pm slartibartfast he usually knows a bunch about stuff like this

[Strato_54]

2 hours ago, onespiritbrain said:

you should pm slartibartfast he usually knows a bunch about stuff like this

Alright I’ll try that later 

[Mr_Reverse]

If the coolant is not leaking, and there is no pressure, then I would replace the radiator cap. I also would pressure test the system to make certain that there is no leaks. 

 

The rubber parts in automobiles really don't store well. After several years of just sitting it is common for hoses to split or crack. Also critters like mice love to chew on wires and rubber. The oil vapor that is run from the crankcase into the intake through the PCV system tends to condense everywhere in the intake system and a couple years of sitting combined wit the dust that finds its way in will become quite sticky and can cause valves in the intake system to not operate properly.

 

People don't realize it, but just sitting and never being run is really hard on automobiles. 

Edited July 11, 2019 by Mr_Reverse

[Slartibartfast]

^Mr. Reverse pretty well covered it. Check the cap, pressure test the system. I pulled a cap off a friend's car once and found most of the rubber missing. Go figure, the coolant was low, though luckily it hadn't overheated yet. I suspect what you've got is a slow leak, which caused low coolant, which in turn caused the overheating you had before.

The idle bump is interesting, but I don't know the R50 idle air system well enough to guess what it might be trying to do.

[Strato_54]

On 7/11/2019 at 8:21 AM, Mr_Reverse said:

If the coolant is not leaking, and there is no pressure, then I would replace the radiator cap. I also would pressure test the system to make certain that there is no leaks. 

 

The rubber parts in automobiles really don't store well. After several years of just sitting it is common for hoses to split or crack. Also critters like mice love to chew on wires and rubber. The oil vapor that is run from the crankcase into the intake through the PCV system tends to condense everywhere in the intake system and a couple years of sitting combined wit the dust that finds its way in will become quite sticky and can cause valves in the intake system to not operate properly.

 

People don't realize it, but just sitting and never being run is really hard on automobiles. 

the idle bump i get when dumping the gas and letting off has been there for years, even when my family used it normally as a daily so its not a new thing. and there hasnt been any leaks since i filled the rad with water then did a flush for normal coolant. all it does now is not pressurize and from what i see it doesnt over heat anymore and that the water does circulate. then again i wouldnt know what that car looks like over heating except for the one day where it wouldnt even move a foot on its own while running (it sounds very bad i know but at that moment we werent at our shop and we were getting it there. we thought it was a fuel error) it probably is the rad cap 

[Strato_54]

UPDATE: I think I have found the culprit to my pressurizing issues. Not 100% sure yet but will try again tomorrow and have a final answer for this thread. Heres what has been happening (taken today after running for about a half hour or more) This is a visual of the issue. 

 

What I believe the issue is: Today I grabbed a new radiator pressure cap as i had thought my old one was done... This was sadly not the case. The old pressure cap was perfectly fine but it wasn't an issue with the cap itself. It was an issue with the cap not sealing. In the radiator where the smaller seal makes contact with the brim of the radiator just before the overflow tube, there was a little bit of plastic scratched away which in turn made the bottom ring not seal. To also make it worse, it was all gunked up with old coolant dirt. After scratching it away and making the surface a little more smooth for the seal, it finally made the upper rad tube stiffer to squeeze. From what i can tell. This might just be my head thinking it is or my fingers burning on coolant lines, but i think i may be on to something. This is definitely something i've never seen or heard of, and i thought i would share this experience with you guys. Ill edit this thread tomorrow with the final verdict. 

[Mr_Reverse]

I have seen that problem before, and it doesn't take much to prevent pressure build. It is a slow process when just normal engine temperature is the only way to increase the pressure in the system. That is why a very small pinhole or weak spring in a cap will not allow the system to build pressure and actually cause the engine to run hotter. Also causes loss of coolant that is not visible due to it being simple evaporation of the water.

[Strato_54]

2 hours ago, Mr_Reverse said:

I have seen that problem before, and it doesn't take much to prevent pressure build. It is a slow process when just normal engine temperature is the only way to increase the pressure in the system. That is why a very small pinhole or weak spring in a cap will not allow the system to build pressure and actually cause the engine to run hotter. Also causes loss of coolant that is not visible due to it being simple evaporation of the water.

Well it doesn’t get that hot at all, my top rad hose only sits at about 60-70C but would probably be colder with pressure when I resolve this issue 

[Strato_54]

I have found the fix (i think havent tested it much) to my issue. There were a multitude of issues and all of which were involving the rad cap and rad seal. The lower seal for the lower rubber piece was not smooth so making a thick layer of JB weld and sanding it down to a smooth layer helped, but did not solve the issue right away. The second issue was the lip that seals to the upper rubber seal for the cap itself was not very smooth, so taking a piece of sand paper on the face of a block to make it flat and smooth helped even more. the final part involves the cap itself where the 2 teeth that hold the cap on to the rad are too low. so taking a pair of pliers and pressing them in more and more in slight increments helped, but if you go too far you can screw up the teeth that hold it on and it will not turn on to the cap. After making it so the cap would hold on to the rad better, that appears to have solved my issue. Now i just have to test and make sure that is the case.