Coolant Cross over cap is stuck on like nuts! And my car is now going nuts - Help!

well i have been running the motor intermittently on and off for about 2 hours... I idle it for about 10 mins with the reservoir sitting on a brick in the same position as I mentioned above - all kinds of :q:q:q:q floats into that reservoir, and i turn it sideways (with the motor still running) to get all the nastiness out, and then fill the reservoir to the top and turn it off. You can hear gurgling in the top radiator hose, and a knock/thud every few minutes, a an air bubble floats through the system as the motor is cooling off. 10 mins later, the reservoir I just filled it completely empty, so I fill it again and its empty again within another 10 mins..I am assuming that the water is running in through there to replace the pocket of air in the motor very slowly. The motor hasnt made any knock/ping noises for a while so I am going to leave it for a while to cool off more, and keep topping the reservoir off. Then in another hour or so I will go back out and somewhat follow the instructions on the sticker near the reservoir.

Im going to Idle for 10 mins, and turn it off to see how much water it pulls down from the reservoir after that, and then I will turn it back on and idle at 2k for 2-3 mins...

Geeeez, the build date on this car is 10/93 (so its an early 94 model) and the hose going from the reservoir to the thermostat housing is marked from 93 as well.

So once I get this situation stabilized with a new crossover pipe, and cap I will change out all the hoses, and the thermostat, and yank out the radiator entirely so I can flush the hell out of it in the driveway?

What is the best thing I can do to get the remaining nasty stuff out of the cooling system?

Thanks!
 
With the torch shouldn't he be heating the tube around the bolt rather than the bolt itself ?? heating the bolt expands it making it tighter. Heating the tube around it would expand the tube making the bolt looser ????
 
Sapperfire said:
Wash it out, replace bad stuff.
Click to expand...

I figured the way I worded that, it basically could have answered itself. :)

What I should ask really is if anyone recommends the cooling system cleaner, or if just flushing the hell outta it will work?

I repeated the procedure mentioned earlier in the thread with burping it through the reservoir by loosening hoses and detaching from the fusebox and putting the reservoir on a brick - I had the top of the reservoir actually almost 5 inches higher than the cross over cap, but I know it still not as good. But the car behaves well so far, the heat is full blast so far, no/knock and ping has come back yet, and as I got towards the end of my procedure I was revving the motor between 1500-2500 for 2 minutes - earlier I was just letting the car sit and idle for 10 minutes. No fluids are now getting lost especially as the motor cools down again, and so far so good.

I think I am going to let it cool completely and then take it out for a drive, and if everything behaves nicely after 15-20 mins of street driving, then maybe jump on the highway for a bit? Its really the only way to know. Right now the temp gauge will get up to the middle, and then to just below the middle right after the thermostat opens and the fan kicks on at a lower speed. Before all this, the temp gauge was sticking in the O range of the temp gauge (norm street summer traffic here) and drop to the middle while on the hwy and actually moving on one of these LA freeways For the last few weeks (before I opened Pandora's box).
As of now, so far what I see on the gauge, and the readings I get from my infrared temp gun look good. IF I can get it to behave, I will drive it this way, and if it doesnt behave then it comes back on a tow truck. Either way, I will definitely be needing a whole new crossover tube for when I change all the hoses and actually put coolant in this car.

As of right now there is only water in the car.

Will report back on this matter after my drive coming up shortly! :D
 
Don Pfau said:
With the torch shouldn't he be heating the tube around the bolt rather than the bolt itself ?? heating the bolt expands it making it tighter. Heating the tube around it would expand the tube making the bolt looser ????
Click to expand...


I didn't see this post until after - I was running the torch around the sides of the pipe where the plug screws into, not on top of the plug itself.
 
Using Flush really depends on your system
..I wouldn't use it if there's a lot of internal rust
 
Drove the car around town lightly for evening errands for 20-25 mins and the temp stayed just below the middle on the gauge. Turn on the heat and it blows nice and hot, and the needle drops a pinch more. Then I drive the car home and I was rough with it, and the needle moved just a hair line above the very middle and that was it. It fluctuated - I got back home and the reservoir didnt have much water in it, so im still waiting for it to cool and Im going to re-fill the reservoir and then take it for a midnight boogie on the hwy to see how it behaves if it is possible (otherwise I wait until morning) - FYI its 83 degrees where I live right at the moment at 10:45pm :D

No more :q:q:q:qed up noises, and the car is behaving completely normal otherwise, except its running noticeably cooler now after this spectacle. Im assuming there was air in the system before and the coolant looked like it could have been near 10 years old. Now its straight water, and a lot of the system is clean, and the reservoir is clean water - no more crap floating around.

I will know for sure in the 105 plus heat tomorrow though for sure, so I will report back then. :rolleyes:

When I get back into work next month, I will wait on buying the cross over tube and cap (from here of course) if possible with everything else needed to COMPLETELY redo the cooling system with everything new including a radiator if mine looks like its also from 93. Good chance to get an upgraded unit for better cooling at that point for not much more money.

Also, Im installing a Hayden 0C1404 trans cooler this weekend and bypassing the one built into the radiator - I figure that will help as well since the radiator doesnt bear the brunt of having to cool trans fluid AND Coolant as well.

When re-doing everything in the system, should I do the water pump as well? I dont know how old the one I have is, but the car does have almost 230k and while its not broken, I dont want to wait for it to break. I want to get it running as cool as it can, so I can drive around LA and everywhere else and actually depend on the car while being able to use the AC whenever needed with no anxiety. I will be making a parts list of everything and post it up later tomorrow after I have a better look at everything else in the morning.

If this half ass sounding procedure by burping with the reservoir balanced on a brick and going through all this nonsense really worked, then its one for the record books! Necessity is the mother of invention, AND being persistent as well. :rolleyes:
 
I just went through a week of fighting the crossover cap not long ago. I ended up using a 12" pipe wrench with a 18" breaker bar attached pre-soaked in PB Blaster over night. I thought I was going to break the crossover tube, but then it moved. Make sure you put the pipe wrench on the cap and not the tube! It'll come off!
 
You say that you are going to get the parts next month when you get back to work next month but you are going to install a trans cooler? If I were you I would read the advise you have been given as in the steam does not register on the temp sensor.

You are playing a game with the car you are going to lose, and when you lose it will be you without a motor in your car. Spend the twenty bucks now and get that crossover tube open and the system bled properly.
 
You're running errands with it? If you're going to drive it, drive it to someone who owns a MIG, and get a nut welded onto the crossover cap so that you can remove it and bleed/fill the system correctly.
 
For now my car is behaving normally, but I am going to take everyone's advice and not take a long time to get a new crossover tube on there (and hoses) so I can bleed it properly! Everything looks good but I know there has to be at least a little bit of air left somewhere in there. These errands are all related to client visits for whats left of my IT Business after it the fan in 2008 - things have been like a rollercoaster since! I dont mean to sound like a persistent ignorant pest, its just that this problem occurred at a time where I am down on funds, and still have a little more than a month before I start a new job. Things are UBER tight right now unfortunately.

The car so far is continuing to run a lot cooler now (and the heater works a lot better now as well), but I am limiting the driving still. Something tells me that I had air in my system before. I am keeping a close eye on things as I am driving around and if I hear the even so much as any of that pinging/detonation crap I was getting before, then I tow it back home. I run most of the longer, or all day drives with my girlfriend in her car for now. In the next 9 months to a year, my mother is also giving me her 1999 Accord with only 31,000 miles on it. She is going to be getting an Acura TSX instead. I plan to be constantly working on my Mark for now, but in a way where there is as little down time as possible. Once I get the Accord, then I can actually start really playing with the Mark and working on the big things which will keep Mark down for a while.

I was asking about the trans cooler because I have had a Hayden OC1404 (22k GVW) laying around, along with a ton of other goodies left over from my V6 and V8 mn12's..

The trans cooler was destined for the white birdy...

TbirdLX_347.jpg
 
Any place with a MIG wouldn't charge more than $10 just to tack a nut on the top of it. It doesn't have to be beautiful. Beautiful will cost a bit more, but the main thing is to get it burped properly (Exactly like the sticker says, not kinda)
 
I agree with Sapp! Get that thing off and fill properly for at the most $10. I didn't even start mine until it came off.
 
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