we just finished rebuilding and attempted to start it many times. finally we towed it around. it started up, ran, and then after a couple minits it overheated. waited for temp to drop, and got it started again. same thing. is this normal? what can i do about it? if its not normal(i doubt its normal) then what could be wrong?
thanks in advance

 

When you say it overheated.... Did the needle peg or did the car start knocking and die?

I remember mine got a little warmer than normal for the first 10 mins or so because the cooling system is far from full untill you top it off while the motor is running.

 

perhaps a stuck thermostat? (sp?) CJ

 

there was probably not much, if any, coolant inside the engine. I think atkins says something about this in their engine R+R video. you might want to ask them for helpl(via email).

 

for that, it should have taken A LOT longer than a few minutes.

 

it pegged

 

Are you sure you had coolant in there? When I swapped turbos I lost lots of coolant and completely forgot about it. I turn on the car and my needle starts to rise pretty damn fast and I **** in my pants. Flush the coolant system, check the thermostat, and hopefully the engine didn't burst any coolant seals on that trip to the big red H.

 

My engine had the cracked water land on it prior to my rebuild and all 8 of the water o-rings were fully intact. The car had been to "the big red H" over a dozen times trying to fix and diagnose the problem. Hell, I drove the car 100 miles having to fill the water back up every 30 miles and it still ran like a champ till the day I tore into it....

Everyone says overheating it so instantaniously bad for our engines, yet I never found any damage other than what was already there when I bought the car with the problem.


So, to fill the cooling system you need to start the car with the rad cap off and keep adding coolant till she doesn't take any more. Then cap it off and make sure there is more than enough in the resivour to take up into the system when it cools down. After you get all the air out it should start behaving normally. I kept adding coolant for a couple days working the air out of it.

 

Word. Although I just wanted to add that near the very top of the radiator there is a little small screw that is plugged into the very bottom of the radiator fill neck. Unscrew this plug before you start adding fluid. This might sound retarded and even insulting, but I didn't do it and couldn't figure out why I had to keep adding in coolant. When you see fluid start to come out of this hole just screw it back in and top the neck off with coolant.

 

Yeah, I forgot to mention that, but you're very right. That little bleeder screw will make your life so much easier. I've also pulled the coolant level sender before to get a visual as to how full the rad is. (lets the air out just the same too)