I just picked up an 86 gxl and I drove it home with no problems, but after i got home the car would say add coolant and the overflow was overflowing . I'm thinkin water pump but I want to hear what you guys think. Thanks, Mike

 

Check the thermostat.

 

Could be. There is a weep hole under the pulley on the water pump, if the pump has failed there should be visible signs of water coming from there. It's a pretty easy fix after you remove all the freeking stock pulleys (Now's a good time to ditch that rat's nest!!) Be sure to flush out the coolant system when you fix it to get all that 22 year old crap outta there.

 

You may have a pinhole leak in the hose to the overflow reservoir.

You didn't mention whether the car actually got hot.

 

yeah, it got hot. the coolant in the overflow was super super hot.

 

Thats normal..How hot is super hot?

 

Start the car and pull the radiator cap. Look for excessive bubbling.

 

Their are several things it could be ,stuck thermostat, crud build up in engine +radiator, bad water pump, or your seals are bad. if you get the excessive bubbling from the post above and a werid smell from your exhaust you might have blown water jacket seal.

 

its really bubbling but there is no funky exhaust smell

 

when you are running the car to normal temp, squeeze the top radiator hose. Is it stiff or can you pinch them. If you can pinch them close, then you are losing coolant pressure, either from a hole somewhere or the radiator cap is bad. Try to pressure test the engine and the radiator cap if you can.

 

worst case scenario: the owner might have blown a coolant seal (have to rebuild the engine to fix) then hurried and sold the car.

or it could just be a bad thermostat, bad radiator caps (correct=spring type on the rad, flat seal on the engine's water neck) or clogged/leaking system.

if it's the first and you can't afford a rebuild now or in the near future. call kwik-way and order some irontite ceramic seal. if you do this follow the instructions 100%. coating your entire cooling system with ceramic isn't the greatest idea, but it can get you years of use out of an engine with bad coolant seals.

 

OK, let's put this to bed.

With the car STONE COLD:

1. Remove rad cap

2. Start car

3. Look into open cap. Do you see a steady stream of bubbles?

If the answer to 3 is "yes", then

4. Rev the car by grabbing the throttle cable at the intake. Observe the open rad cap. When you rev, do the bubbles increase or massive amounts of coolant spew out?

If the answer to #4 is "yes", then it sounds like you have an internal coolant leak in the engine. This will be due to a compromised o-ring. This is either caused by the o-ring just failing (rare), corrosion underneath it (somewhat common) or a broken iron (common).

 

so yeah, i did what you said and the coolant seems to move very slow then when i rev it up its delayed then it just bubbles out everywhere. Is it definatly one of those 3 things? and if so how do i tell which for sure? and btw the heat in the car isnt working well isnt blowing hot. Thanks alot for helping

 

its a clogged radiator...

 

ok ill try it today, i dont have any pressure either. so i hope this is it!

 

If you're not losing coolant and you don't see a tonne of bubbles coming from inside the engine in a constant stream, then it's probably not an engine issue.

Sounds like you may have a large air lock in the cooling system. Bleed the cooling system as described in the Archives.

Also check the rad. Feel it after the car warms up to make sure it's hot.