Over Heating in need of Help!!!!

[Mike Gordon]

I have a 2.4 Surf. Drove from Newquay to Southampton on Sunday Evening. Got all the way to Southampton and stopped to drop my passenger off. Fan kicked in as the engine was warm. Drove off thinking nothing was wrong, 5 minutes down the road temp gauge went into the red, pulled over and stopped. Expansion bottle bubbling. Waited for engine to cool added some water and carried on, got about 5 miles and the engine was in the red again. Pulled over allowed to cool, checked water still loads in the expansion bottle. Switched heater to max and fan to max to try and cool engine, carried on heater blowing hot air into the car, engine got hot again and as the needle got into the red zone the heater was blowing cold air into the car. Stopped again! By now its Monday morning! Let engine cool and then crawled the last 2 miles home really slowly.....Expansion bottle was bubbling when I got home like a camping kettle!!
What does anyone think, I think that my thermostat has failed and closed causing the engine to over heat....Does anyone have any ideas???

[Guest]

I have a 2.4 Surf. Drove from Newquay to Southampton on Sunday Evening. Got all the way to Southampton and stopped to drop my passenger off. Fan kicked in as the engine was warm. Drove off thinking nothing was wrong, 5 minutes down the road temp gauge went into the red, pulled over and stopped. Expansion bottle bubbling. Waited for engine to cool added some water and carried on, got about 5 miles and the engine was in the red again. Pulled over allowed to cool, checked water still loads in the expansion bottle. Switched heater to max and fan to max to try and cool engine, carried on heater blowing hot air into the car, engine got hot again and as the needle got into the red zone the heater was blowing cold air into the car. Stopped again! By now its Monday morning! Let engine cool and then crawled the last 2 miles home really slowly.....Expansion bottle was bubbling when I got home like a camping kettle!!
What does anyone think, I think that my thermostat has failed and closed causing the engine to over heat....Does anyone have any ideas???

Mike.

Could be a number of things.

Thermostat - remove the thermostat and run it for a while without it just to check.
Viscous fan not working properly. Should be stiff when hot and easy to turn when cold.
Airlock in the system from when you first refilled it.

However I hate to be the bearer of bad news - I would get the system pressure tested just to make sure that you haven't got a cracked head. Bubbling in the expansion bottle and a cold heater means either an airlock or no water in the system - could be an airlock as the temp gauge stayed reading hot and because the sender is at the top it will read cold when there is no water in the system even if the engine is extremely hot.

Hope that it is just and airlock or the thermostat or even a blocked radiator. You could drain down the coolant and refill slowly - the drain tap is at the bottom passenger side of the radiator.

Good luck.

Have a look through the search facility, you will find quite a lot of discussion about overheating and cracked heads on the 2.4s, mind you you will get the impression that all of them crack which is not the case and seems to happen to around 20% of 2.4s.

Cheers

[Koi]

Just to add to this, you say you checked the water and still loads in the expansion tank. There will be, it is only an expansion tank, you must only fill the system via the rad cap on the engine. If you fill the expansion tank it wont get into the engine. When cold the expansion tank only holds a couple inches of coolant at most.
Had you done any work ie flush etc before this happened, if so may be just an air lock.

[Mike Gordon]

No work done on Engine since I purchased it last November.
Will see if I can find the Water fill up cap....

[Guest]

No work done on Engine since I purchased it last November.
Will see if I can find the Water fill up cap....

It's on the top right of the engine as you look at it, It's a standard twist off rad cap on an alloy unit which also houses the Thermostat.

If you follow back from the small hose going into the expansion bottle it will take you straight to it.

Cheers

[Mike Gordon]

Thankfully

So, thankfully the heavens must be shinning on me as it was just the thermostat. 20 minutes to replace and everything was fine again.
Full Service on Tuesday next week to ensure everything is clean and sorted.

Thanks all for the posts

[poppy986]

Sounds like themostat gone.just had to change one in my 91 ssr
2.4 td.
This is the second time in 3 years? just as you said overheating
and bubbling into the expantion tank.
Once you replaced the thremo dont forget to refill with anti freeze via the block as come next winter you would have forgotten
it by then Cheers Chris