Tim,
You say the radiator flows well. If you have good coolant flow, the
temperature everywhere across the radiator will be roughly equal. It would
be best to verify this with some kind of temperature measuring device, but
you could start with feeling across it with you hand and seeing if you can
find any cool spots that would indicate either generally slow flow, or
blocked tubes in some parts of the radiator. If you do have good coolant
flow, then the only alternative is poor air flow. That is unless you have a
blown head gasket or cracked head that is allowing exhaust gas directly
into the coolant. I think you would have some other symptoms as well if
this were the case. I assume from your statement that the electric fan
never came on that it's thermostatically switched. Is the set point
adjustable? Is it possible that the temp were the sensor is isn't reaching
the set point? Could this be a symptom of poor coolant flow?
Grasping a few more straws in S.D.,
Bob
At 06:49 PM 1/9/00 -0800, Tim Beloney wrote:
>The idle is a bit high at 1300, but I didn't think that would cause
>such a drastic effect.
>
>I tried starting with the simplest thing and replaced the radiator
>cap with a 16psi one, but to no avail. It overheated in less than 10
>minutes. The electric fan never did come on, but to me it still
>shouldn't overheat. The radiator flows well, but I'm not beyond
>replacing it with a bigger one if that's really the problem.
>
>Tim
Robert L. Palmer
UCSD, Dept. of AMES
619-822-1037 (o)
760-599-9927 (h)
rpalmer@ucsd.edu
rpalmer@cts.com
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