Hi all, i havent been on here in quite a while but know that this is the place to go to get some good solid help...

anyways lets start off with what ive done. back about a year ago i thought i had a hole in my engine because it was overheating and leaking water bad... so i let it sit for a long time before i figured out it was my water pump... replaced that lovely contraption after having to have a friend come over and literally break it out by taking one of the teeth that had rusted it in off the block. put in a new water pump no problem, and installed a new cover, thermostat, and hose to the bottom of the radiatior. had issues with this leaking so i RTV sealed all of it REAL WELL. then took it for a test drive after seeing no leaks. on my 5 mile drive i found out that i had blown my heater core as well by way of hot water on the foot, made it home but by this time icouldnt even see out my car because of the steam billowing out of my dash. so this last weekend i removed the dash and replaced the heatercore with an aluminum one (hopefully the back wont just fall off like the plastic one its replacing) and everything looked good to go after warming the car up and seeing no leaks in the engine compartment.

soooo... this is where i decided to take it for another test drive and see if my baby was good to go. i took it about 2.5 miles from my house and up a 1/4mile hill at the end of the first leg of my drive. at this point i was pumped because everything looked good, the car ran great and sounded fine, even seemed ok at WOT for a second or two, the heater core definitely worked because i got cool air and hot air with no leaking, and the dash said nothing about overheating or a lack of coolant.

so i decided to take it down a back road to make a circle to my house with the freeway on my way home, im lucky i never made it to the freeway becasue i woulda been pissed. but about 4 miles since i left my house it promptly said that i needed to check my coolant level. pulled off onto the side of the road and got out to check everything. so i get under the hood to see where this coolant is coming from and its just spraying out of the overflow tube from the return resevoir and nowhere else. i let the engine cool down for like 30 minutes because i could hear the water boiling in the engine and the OR. after the cooldown i put another gallon of water in the OR because thats all the engine would let it take. started back up and got the check coolant right away so i turned the car off and went to check it again. after about 20-30 seconds of running i could hear the water all boiling again...

so i let it sit for 10 minutes and drove the 1-1.5 miles home and let it sit all night since last night. i could hear the water rapidly boiling in the driveway after i turned the engine off...

now the questions... first, since i installed the thermostat myself is there a way that i could have installed it incorrectly so that it could be causing my overheating issue (i know i didnt install it upside down for sure)? second, what the hell else could be causing this to overheat if there is a good waterpump and thermostat in place?

also, i have been doing some reading and found that the next steps i should take in diagnostics are to do a coolant test and compression test to make sure it isnt a blown head gasket. could someone please tell me what these are for, and please point me in the direction to find out how to at least do the coolant test (i dont have too many tools and probably couldnt do a compression test myself)?

thanks so much for listening to my rambling, and for all the help anyone is willing to give. much appreciated

 

Hi,good morning

• Check the coolant system pipes at the back side of engine, it may be suffering of corrosion and so there will be water leak.
• Be sure to have new thermostat, an old thermostat can cause engine overheated.
• Check water pump belt .
• Finally if your engine still overheating you must do head gasket tests.

 

definitely isnt anything leaking in the engine compartment cuz i saw no water drippin from anywhere when the car was actually overheated nor when i was looking everywhere for it before i went on either test drives. the water i saw coming out on sunday was a hot mist spray being forced out of the overflow resevoir's hose.

i do have a brand new thermostat in there, but not sure if theres some "special" way to install it so that it works correctly other than the fact that i put it in right side up...

and there is nothing wrong with the water pump belt. i had to replace the whole water pump itself so i know that everything over there is now in working order after being right next to it trying to figure out why my thermostat/waterpump housing was leaking after i put the new therm&pump inside the old housing...

so... what are the head gasket tests other than what i have asked for before? and how do i do these tests myself if possible?

thanks for the help guys, i do want to approach this step by step and so everyone double checking me doesnt hurt at all. i just want to drive my cadi again man...

 

hi ive been through this mess before and i will try to help you out. first off if you replaced water pump and thermostat and heater core and it over heats then you need to make sure you are running 50/50 of coolant and water. i noticed you said you added 1 gallon of water. and then it still proceded to over heat. this will keep happening if you have more water than you do coolant since water will boil at over 200*F. wich is what will cause the pressure to build up inside the coolant system and push it out the overflow tank. If you have the proper mixture and it over heats still check the top hose and see if it feels hard or feels full. if the hose feels hard or full check to see if it feels hotter on the bottom part of the hose than the top. if that is the case than you have air inside the system and it needs to be bled out. you can bleed it out by running the car (not driving) and take off the overflow cap to release the air from the system. you can rev the engine a little bit (1500rpm max) that will help get the air out of the system too. after that is done add more coolant if necessary. take it for a drive and if it over heats again check that top hose for the same results and if you find the same results (feels hard or full of air)the first time that means you are getting air in the system most likely its comming in from the combustion chamber. Which usually means.......headgaskets are failing. This is how i was able to diagnose that my gaskets were failing and so im sure this should help you out too so try some more trouble shooting and get back with us.

 

thanks daddylac, i'll grab some coolant on the way home. i a;ways only filled it with just water back when i knew there was an issue and ive only put a gallon or two of antifreeze/coolant back in since i replaced everything. i wanted to do a flush of the system after i got everything good to go but maybe i'll have to skip that and just go with testing it with the correct mxture... i didnt think that it might just be the water boiling and not an overheating issue...

definitely check this out and get back, but any other tests i can do or troubleshooting aideas anyone wants to throw my way i'd be much appreciative. and thanks again guys

 

Gents
Note that cadillac devill 1994 takes about 13 Ltr of coolant, this is very important issue if the loop is not full of water engin will over heated , so be sure about amount of water.

 

yeah, i found in my chilton that it takes 12.3 quarts of coolant, which equals about 3 gallons if im not mistaken. i thought it was a lot more than that because back when it was really overheating it would take 4 gallons no problem(but it was also dumping it out as i put it in)...

so last night i went and got 3 gallons of coolant and went home to start the process of filling it up with as close to correct mixture as possible. i wanted to flush the system so i went ahead and did that at home without any chemicals to aid. i just opened the radiator drain and refilled with water to get it cleaned. i did this about 5 times with just refilling with water.
this is where it gets weird, because it definitely didnt seem like even 3 gallons was coming out of the car. i was getting around 2 gallons out each time, maybe a little less. in addition to that, when i went to go put back the water i let out it would only let me putin about a gallon and a half at a time, a little less sometimes too... now i dont know if thats a symptom of something else wrong with my coolant system, but i thought that it was awfully strange that i could only get less than 2 gallons in.
so after i filled it each time with water i went and got the coolant after the last running for the flush. got back home and dumped the remaining water(or most of it) and filled in my 1 and almost a half gallons of coolant in the system. after that i ran the enigne for almost 15 minutes with revving it up to get the coolant and water to mix in the system well. let it cool for another 15-20 after that and dumped what i could get out of the system at this point because i wasn't aware of the capacity until just before it was finished draining this time(had just found it in the chilton). i just wanted to make sure i had as close to 50/50 as i could get and i thought my capacity was somewhere closer to 6.5 or 7 gallons...

so after i drained it with the first batch of coolant i went and filled the half gallon the rest of the way with water and put that in the system as well as around 3/4 of the other coolant gallon. so at this point i thought that i had full capacity of my fluid and that the mixture should be fairly close to 50/50 if not a little more coolant than water. so i started the cadi back up with the OR cap off still to try and drain the system of any air left in it. ran for about 5 minutes, maybe a little more until i noticed that the fluid was boiling out of the OR tank without the cap on. turned the engine off and went and put the remaining 1/4 gallon of coolant in and topped off with water to make the OR full. after about 15 more minutes i was out taking it for a small drive to see if it was still giving me issues or not.
i do need to say that the car was definitely already warm when i took it out for the drive, but that shouldnt matter too much if its not overheating anymore... but i got about .5miles down the road and just had that gut feeling that ineeded to pull over and check it out. so at like 12:15 last night i pulled into a parking lot and i could see coolant coming out of the OR hose and draining under the car it sounded like the fluid was slowly boiling too, which definitely shouldnt be happening with how much coolant was in it, and the fans were goin good so i know it was starting to get real hot.
so i took it right back home and got out to check, didnt see anything coming out of the hose anymore, but it was still warm to the touch when i pulled it up to check it out. so like daddylac said i felt it to see if it was hot at all... neither the top of the overflow hose or the bottom of it felt as if there was a difference in temp at all, and it wasn't hot to the touch, but luke warm... and if he was talking about the upper radiator hose that thing felt all hot and was burning me when i went to reach the radiator drain all but the first 2 times flushing. the weird thing was that the lower radiator hose wasnt getting all too hot, and only the very last water draining was it too hot for me to burn myself when my forearm was sandwiched up against it...

so... still i ask, is there a possibility that i put my thermostat in wrong? also, since i saw NO white smoke out of the engine or exhaust, is it still possible that its a head gasket issue? and is there any other way to tell if im getting air in the system that running the car without the resevoir cap or feeling the hoses?

thanks again for the help guys, im goin crazy and the girl wants to go to the drive-ins so bad... cant take the kia though, gotta go in style and comfort

 

well now that you stated that the top hose is hotter than the bottom this helps me out. this is may be because of a clog or stuck thermostat or like you said you put it in backwards. check the T-Stat and see what you find this is also why you where having a hard time with your flush. anyways check that out and get back with us and ill try to help asap.

 

my bad its taken so long to get back... had the girls leavin for a few weeks so i gotta spend time with them and so now i have plenty for my cadi

anyways, i have had some issues with that area leaking and i gunked rtv sealant on that area, so im not gungho about stripping it down. what im gonna do though is take pictures with the old parts of how i put the new parts in the engine and post them up here to verify what i did wasnt wrongo...

on another note though, i think that i MAY have gotten this all figured out, but not sure... so what i did was after all that i had an idea that it might just be my radiator cap being SUPER old and needing to be replaced. so i went and got a new cap and put that on the OR. ran the car for probably 3-4 miles til i got to my bank and everything seemed fine. was there for awhile and went the 1-1.5 miles back to my house... by the time i was back home i heard something hissing and i saw that i hadnt connected the lower radiator hose's clamp over the radiator so i put that back on there. so i hope that may have solved the issue with my coolant, possibly, except i also suspect now more than ever that there might be a leak in the head gasket...

this is because after i filled the OR back up i heard a bubbling sound from my enigine block. i had no idea what it was so i went inspecting. so as i peer down behind where the camshaft and chrankshaft pulleys and belts all run i look back into this depression and i see bubbles coming up... so i stuck a screwdriver down in the area to see what the liquid was and it turned out to be oil. the weird thing is that i went back like an hour later to look at it again and the oil puddle is no longer there... so it seems that oil is bubbling out of my engine then finding a way back in behind where the crankshaft is...

im gonna get a compression tester from the neighbor sometime this week and i'll post the results from that back up here with the pics...

thanks again for all the help guys. its awesome to be able to have somewhere to go to to get solid advice without coughin up the wallet