2003 overheating?

[Butch Smith]

2003 Eddie Bauer 23000 miles overheats and then when I turn it off and wait 2 min before cranking everything is back to normal. Sometimes it blows some coolant out of the overflow tank.

 

[Retiredusps]

to me it sounds like a bad head gasket or cyl. head

 

[Butch Smith]

gasket replaced

 

[kep5niner]

Milky engine oil? That would indicate head gasket leak, which contaminates the coolant and can lead to overheating.

When was the last time you serviced the cooling system?

 

[Retiredusps]

compression test, maybe damaged gasket on install ,warped head not torqued to bolt patern

 

[Butch Smith]

Serviced last year . Done compression test and checked for air in system.

 

[Hamfisted]

Thermostat or blockage in the radiator if you are certain it's not a head gasket. Were both sides replaced ?
You can get your own exhaust gas in the coolant test kit and do your own test for that.

Coolant Test Kit on Amazon

 

[proftomda]

Is your coolant clean or is it a chocolate milkshake color? Assuming it clean and compression check verifies good head gaskets, then I would hook up a obd scanner and read the coolant temperature under live data. That will tell you if it’s overheating. If you want to start throwing parts at it, I would replace the thermostat and recheck via obd scanner for changes. Still bad then water pump. I assume your setp belt is good.

 

[Martynka]

Hi,

I have the same problem. Overheating. I checked:

- exhaust gas in coolant - tested few times with bleu test ( no exhaust gas in cooling system )
- changed thermostat ( two times, now I have 165F )
- changed water pump ( old was in good condition )
- changed visco clutch
- changed heater valve
- all cooling system was flushed on working engine and after that cleaned water with preasure ( everything was clean with free flow )
- new drive belt
- blast sanded pulley

All above nothing changed.

I turn it off and wait 2 min before cranking everything is back to normal

looks the same, I tell you more:

When engine started to overheating I have cold air from vents. About 230F coolant temp, coolant indicator goes up, and about 250F I have signal about overheating but... If i put N and few times rise revs to about 3500RPM temp goes down and I have heat from vents and can drive 1000 miles to next engine cool down (maybe you have the same)

I drive car daily, when started to be cold from vents I wait till indicator starts to rise and few times rise RPM.

It looks like after open thermostat water has no time to cool down and I need rise RPM to rise water flow. When I try to solve problem I observe few things:
- I almost sure that last winter after cold start I had cold air from vents till engine heat up, after engine heated up vents started to blow heat. Now, I have almost at start warm air and temp rise with engine heat.
- heater valve ( works on underpressure ) not working. It's nom metter angine cold or engine hot. No metter I set vents temp to low or to high. Valve is still open, old and new one. I have underpressure on inlet line but on line to valve zero underpressure.

 

[BlackCoffee]

Sounds exactly like what I experience with a bad head gasket. If this occurs on first startup, what I found was that the coolant would leak into the cylinder when the engine cooled down overnight. This set an air bubble in the hoses that lead to the heater core which prevents flow. The are above the coolant tank which is why you should run the engine with the cap off and heater full blast when adding coolant. The thermostat would open, but with no flow the temperature rose until the pressure was high enough to force the bubble through the system. Since the gasket leak was into the cylinder and not the oil, morning startup usually included the exhaust cloud. Other indications, since the leak is usually cylinder 1, are misfiring indications on cylinder 1. Good luck, but I am betting on a cylinder head gasket. As Hamfisted suggested, look for coolant in the exhaust.