98rs - half a radiator = ?

[minix42@]

any ideas?... My '98RS has been acting up for a while now and I'm still at a loss to understand why. I was almost convinced it was the headgasket dying, but now I'm not sure. I was driving to the store yesterday when it suddenly decided to overheat. When I popped the hood and felt the radiator, the passenger side was very hot but the drivers side was cool as could be.

I realize that this is designed into the radiator --- the hot water enters on the top passenger side, and makes it's way to the bottom drivers side as it cools--- but this seems pretty extreme. The inlet side was Very Hot all the way to the center of the radiator. Then from the center to the outlet it was cold. I'm just wondering why there was such a dramatic difference in temp so close to each other.

Do you think this has something to do with why I'm puking coolant from time to time? I've bleed the system SOOO many times, but it seems like there's always more air in there. I don't know if it's just because I missed an air bubble and it multiplied, or if new air's entering the system.

mike

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[munkis]

its either a stuck thermostat, or most likely head gaskets, I only read the first line of your post...

ive seen it before on my98's, but the on I saw like that, had a cracked head.

get it checked out as soon as you can.

Jay McDade
Lincoln/Mercury/Jaguar

[ciper]

Id say to save yourself from going nuts go and buy a coolant sniffer. If you do it right its pretty conclusive about head gasket failure. Even if its not leaking all the time the exhaust will still be present in your coolant (leave the old coolant in the car for now).

When the car overheats does the heater still blow hot?

[minix42@]

ciper: too late... I am nUtz!>< arugh!@# thanks though.

I think the heater blew hot.... I just flipped the heater on and jumped out to open the hood so I wasn't really around to find out until a couple minutes later. It worked quite well afterwards.

I just replaced the thermostat and radiator cap twice in the last month or so. I'm just trying to think of everything other than the headgasket that it could be.

Is my bleeding procedure screwed up or something?... I've been trying for weeks to get all the air out. Every time I fill the radiator (even tried parking on a hill,) it just seems like all the coolant ends up in the expansion tank shortly afterwards. This time around I found white chunky stuff in the coolant.

[Seca2man]

I had the same problem 98. When I brought it to the dealer they said they thought my block maybe cracked. One of my mechanic buddies thinks that it's the head gasket. I pulled the engine and dropped in a used 98 legacy outback 2.5l engine temporarily. I haven't dismantled the original engine yet. I bought a used phase 2 block and will be ordering alluminum pistons and rods in about a month or two. I'm leaning towards it being the head gasket. A small tear or something in the headgasket which lets some back pressure into the coolant passage which in turn causes the coolant not to flow. A temporary fix that I found was to slowly let the pressure out of the bleeder screw rather than the radiator cap. Then add coolant and water through the bleeder opening. I think that equalized the pressure enough to temporarily let the head gasket tear to fall back in place and get back on the road sooner. Most likely you'll have to pull out the engine at some point to try and keep from doing more permanent damage like warping or cracking. Hope this helps.
-Alain