air in radiator lines?

[phil_long]

my mom just took the car to get it inspected since im at work. the car passed inspection, but the guy claims that there was "air" in the lines of the radiator, and if the car sits too long that it will over heat.  Im like at what temp did this happen? she says its all written down.  Im thinking to myself that his definition of overheating could be different than ours.   We'll see tho

[Steve Wood]

there is usually air in the system initially after draining the radiator.  It will eventually purge after a few heat cycles.  You can speed the process along by removing the radiator cap when it is cold and adding some coolant to top it off...or you can wait and it should blow out into the reservoir and be replaced by the coolant in the reservoir.

Sounds normal to me

[Steve Wood]

How much rubber did your Mom put down?

[phil_long]

No rubber (hopefully). Now i have to fig out what's going on with the car. Apparently, when she got home, it WAS overheating.  That's weird to me simply because i had no issues what so ever last night driving the car home.  She said that the coolant in the coolant resovoir tank was bubbling.   This is about to send me in flames. Lol.  I just want to get ahead

[phil_long]

AND, is it possible that the t-stat is bad? i went to change it out but never did since they didnt have any 160's that would fit. I didn't see a point in replacing my 180 with another.

[phil_long]

she said that the water temp light came on

[phil_long]

I know I'm ranting, but i didnt clear the code that i seen in my Scantool on the drive home. When i got in the car, it was a code 23 in there. I fig'd the shop didn't get a chance to clear the code.  I will when i get home. not sure if this is relevant or not tho becuase my SES Light was not present for this code last night when i drove the car home

[Steve Wood]

You could look it up and see if it is relevant!   http://www.vortexbuicks-etc.com/trouble_codes.htm

I would look and see if the harness is connected to the sensor

On the overheating, I don't know.  Was the fan running?  Does it have water/coolant in it now?  The thermostat could be the culprit among other things.  You are going to have to look at it and see what looks out of place.

[PacecarTA]

if coolant lamp was on you dont have air in the lines you have boiling coolant

code 23 is unrelated as thats air temp the sensor by the airfilter  and 23 is low reading which it throws if the sensor is unplugged while key is on , and its a soft code in that it will turn on a SES light and set code but once its reconnected the SES lamp will go out.
 
 you arent running a temp gauge? , what about a scanmaster as it would read out coolant temp

check that the fans are running

if you had water that boils at 212
if coolant mixture it shouldnt bubble until 240, if your rad cap holds pressure it shouldnt have gone to a boil until 260

inform your mom that driving while over heating ranks up there with one of the worst things you can do

[phil_long]

Due to her driving it oppose to me, her looking through the SM wouldnt have helped me much.  Im just bringing up the issues now so I know what to go thru when i get home. there is coolant in there oppose to water so I suppose the temp was ridiculously high. fortunately she made it home with the car. i will check the thermostat(put it in boiling water?) and see what happens. thanks

[phil_long]

and, im not sure as to how this occurred when the trip back home last night was longer than her trip to the inspection place.

[Steve Wood]

first start by seeing if the car is full of coolant...if it is not, find out where it leaked out (I am assuming that the reservoir did not overflow.  Might check the oil to make sure it is not a milkshake.

Then, if the car is full of coolant, crank it up and see if the fan runs.  If not, fix it.

If the system is full of coolant, and the fan runs, then check if the coolant is circulating... .when cool remove the radiator cap and see if coolant is flowing thru the tubes and into the passenger side radiator tank.  You should also be able to grab the upper radiator hose and feel if it gets hot/hard at 180 degs...(check the the CLT on the SM to check for the 180 for the thermostat opening and 197, or a bit more, to see if the fan comes on

If the coolant is full, fan on, and coolant not circulating... then pull the thermostat

[phil_long]

thanks Steve

[earlbrown]

And keep in mind that the overflow bottle having bubbling coolant doesn't necessarily mean boiling.

It could be the radiator burping air out. In that case, it will draw coolant back in when it cools down. That's pretty normal after opening up the cooling system.


Any idea if your thermostat has a steam hole in it (and clocked to be on the topside). Without one of those it will take quite a few heat cycles to fully burp the system.

[phil_long]

these are good points. unfortunatley Earl, i dont know what the steam hole is. guess i should've taken a pic of that when i had it out. AND, if it is in there, i didnt know it would have had to go in a specific way. im learning though so take it easy on me