Just about had it! '03 Cooling System!

Gus_Mahn

Gus_Mahn

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My wife's 130,000 mile '03 LS8 is on the verge of going bye bye. Last month it was running a little hot. The fan was running more than usual but temp gauge looked ok. She was downtown Chicago when the upper radiator hose cracked at the T. $162 tow got it home. Changed thermostat, surge tank, and upper hose. Yesterday about 1 mile from home, it puked coolant again. This time it appears a half dollar sized plug on the driver side of the thermostat housing blew out. Hope I don't need to buy an intake manifold! If I can change the plastic cooling parts for about $600 or less I'll just fix it, but she drives herself and my kids through some nasty parts of Chicago. I've quickly lost trust in this car. She still likes it, and doesn't want to spend the money, but we need something very reliable. ARRRRRRRRRRG!!!!!
 
Buy a new Honda. I hear they are "reliable" for about 150K miles.

You've got a car with 130,000 miles on it, what did you expect? Eventually, stuff starts breaking down. The trick is to do preventative maintenance. I'm willing to bet the radiator hoses are the original hoses. Not a big investment to replace them and they'll be good for another 100K miles.
 
What did I expect? I'll play. My '97 F-150 has 333,000 miles on it. It has NEVER had any cooling system issues with only yearly drain and fill maint. In fact, it's only had a few small issues. I was hoping for something similar out of the LS. I understand economics to some degree. I might be old fashioned, I only buy American cars.

BTW I found the part in the service manual. It's called a coolant bypass housing and looks like it's $62. I'll also get a lower hose. What's left to fail?
 
Well... you got the thermostat and upper cooling hose replaced... Engine to heater core hoses, and a new water pump, if you want to go all out. It probably wouldn't hurt to flush the radiator while you're at it.

As far as the F-150? You do realize the F-150 (and just about any truck, really) has a cooling system that's overkill for daily driving while you're not pulling anything close to GCVWR behind it, right?
 
Relax. The thermostat housing (front and back) is not a part of the intake manifold. You can replace them for much less than $600 if you do it yourself. (More like $900 if you have a dealer do it.) I would have recommended you do this back when the upper hose failed. All of the plastic parts in the cooling system are due for failure now. I say this from experience.
If you search, I have a thread about replacing exactly the parts you are talking about.
 
Pull the top plastic piece between the headlights that helps hold the rad in place and look to see if your rad is plugged with road debris.
It should only take a few minutes to remove it.
If so use a water hose to clean it out.
 
joegr said:
Relax. The thermostat housing (front and back) is not a part of the intake manifold. You can replace them for much less than $600 if you do it yourself. (More like $900 if you have a dealer do it.) I would have recommended you do this back when the upper hose failed. All of the plastic parts in the cooling system are due for failure now. I say this from experience.
If you search, I have a thread about replacing exactly the parts you are talking about.
Click to expand...

+1.
The pipes all seam to go around the same time. If you have a break. It won't be long before you have another.
Also it sounds like you may need to bleed the cooling system a little more the next tme around. The built up pressure and expelling coolant. It sound like you still had air in the system.
Get the plastics and do it yourself.
 
Bottom hose type

There are two diff. bottom radiator hoses, one with oil cooler one without. Is the cooler for the SST transmisson?
 
REDBED said:
There are two diff. bottom radiator hoses, one with oil cooler one without. Is the cooler for the SST transmisson?
Click to expand...

The cooler is an oil cooler for the engine, not the transmission. I believe that all V8 sport and premium have it.
 
I had a 92' town car and it was reliable as hell. I put it thought hell and it's still trucking. The only problems I've ever had with it are normal stuff for a car with over 200K miles. Had a spark plug and egr valve go, that's about it. Oh, the blend door for the A/C went too.

I hear the newer town cars are about as reliable to because they are a relatively simple design so not as much can go wrong with them.
 
degas bottle too!

Since you were running hot, the coolant tank will most likely have developed fine hair line cracks in it from the heat. Go ahead and replace it, or at least remove and inspect it, you will see find vertical cracking. Bleed system correctly, and you are good for another 100k miles.
 
Well $274.40 (wholesale) it's back on the road. There is a plastic elbow that goes into the block behind the bypass housing that didn't get changed. It looks like the piece behind the throttle body needs removed to change the elbow. I ordered the parts on the phone and didn't know it was there.

Upper and lower radiator hoses, t-stat and housing, bypass housing are now new. The ears in the t-stat housing had broken off. It is the strangest setup I've seen. A vice really helps to install the t-stat into the housing. The surge tank looks ok and is only 1 month old, so it was reused. Hopefully the rubber hoses last a lot longer, because other than the radiator hoses, none were changed.
 
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