collant problems
 

hey guys my car is having coolant problems, its not overheating but it is loosing all of its collant, i think it is mainly at idile. and right after i turn the car off. i have to put about 1 - 1.5 qts in every day, its not over heating so i dont think its the thremostat, and it looses it even after the car is off so i dont think it is a coolant to rotor seal. Could a bad radiator cap or thremostat cap cause it to loose collant even after the car is off?? and its loosing the collant beacuse it is overflowing the overflow bottle?!!

and to see if maybe it is the thremostat would it hurt the car to run it a day with the termostat taken out? just an open cooling system?

please help me im really tired of having to put water in it every single day!

well i had a problem like that and i check the lines going to and from the radiator and i noticed i didnt put the clamp back on one of the hoses. so i would say chech the hoses and see if it is leaking anywhere.

also if you have done a coolant flush recently you probably didnt burp the system to get all of the air out of there.

also it wouldnt hurt to see if the seals on your radiator and water pump caps are bad. its easy to tell if they are, they will leak when the engine is warm and you will see collant coming out of the cap.

its all leaking out of the over flow bottle i coulnt find any other leaks. and i thought i didnt burb it right but i have done it many many times. and it still happenes.

Bad radiator cap.

And do not run even one minute without a thermostat. That will only lead to overheating and cavitation of the water pump in the coolant (which will lead to spot cooling, which will lead to spot overheating, which will lead to leaking coolant seals).

We have a winner!!

If you're not overheating but you're overflowing your bottle.....you either have the wrong type of cap or the cap you have is bad. It has to keep a good seal and stay closed until the system reaches a certain pressure. When that pressure is reached, it forces the seal up under the cap and sends fluid to the overflow. your autoparts store SHOULD be able to tell you which cap you need....I can't remember off the top of my head.

.9 bar

actualy, i think you all are wrong... i did another search, (first one didnt help) and i read where some one had the raditor caps switched... and i got to thinking. that when i repalced my heater hose about 3 weeks ago i had both rad caps off at the same time... so i must have accedentaly swaped them then. after swaping, and going for a short 10 min test drive i saw no fluid coming out at all. but thank you all for the imput

boy do i feel stupid now!!!

No, we are not wrong.

Because one cap is simply a cap, and the other is a radiator cap...

The fact you messed up with which one you used is regardless. A properlly functioning radiator cap would prevent the problem you were having.

i didnt mean any offence icemark when i said that every one was wrong.. i was just trying to be funny ( i guess i didnt word my self properly). i looked at the bottom of both caps and they seamed to function fairly simialr, one just had more play then the other... i am going to replace both caps with in the next few weeks just to be safe.. but which one goes where. the one with the little wings is now on top of the radiator and the round one is on top of the thermostat neck. is that correct??

The two caps you have should be very different. One is a pressure relief cap with a spring under it that goes where the overflow hose is and the other is just a flat cap. On my '88 N/A the flat cap is on the Rad. and the relief cap is on the coolant filler neck. As IceMark pointed out, the relief cap should be rated at .9 bar.

actually i heard it's better to take out a the thermostat during summer also i heard u can put a quarter in there something like that has anybody heard such a thing???

you can core out a thermostat but the flow has to be restricted somewhat, it has been a debate for a while whether removing the thermostat is beneficial or can hurt the motor. i have run my car with a cored thermostat and it ran cooler than with the thermostat but to each his own. if you remove and core the thermostat though you need to plug up the bypass hole which is an 18mm core plug size directly beneath the thermostat to keep fluid from bypassing the radiator. a quarter? lol!

you can have 2 pressure caps on the car but the one on the radiator needs to be functioning properly for the system to work the way it should. having a flat cap on the thermostat neck was just a way to cut down on costs since obviously they cost less to make.

hmm then thats odd beacuse neaither of mine are just a flat cap... i wonder what the other one is to lol..