cooling system issues while on vacation. please help

[rzr]

sorry guys for asking about issues that have been covered a million times. i do know how to use the search function but i am having to use a cell phone for internet while sitting here in a hundred degree weather. my sweaty fingers arent working on the phone screen to well !

anyways i have an 01 lincoln ls 3.9 v8. left out for vacation a few days ago with no trouble but yesterday i noticed the car was running a little warmer than normal. took the car to a shop near where we are vacationing and they were worthless ( should have known when they tried to tell me mitsubishi built the LS for fomoco). the closest dealer is 72 miles. i didnt think the fan was operating properly so i sea foamed the hydraulic system. it didnt help me so looking further into it i decided it wasnt circulating coolant so i pulled the tstat and threw it in a pan of water than was at 216 degrees and it didnt open up. got a new part and tested it in the boiling water and it worked fine so i put it in and bled the system. i also inspected the hoses and plastic tubbing and pulled the degas bottle. i notice no leaks.

i am not confident that i got all the air out but i possible did. while bleeding i noticed it wont blow hot air when cranked up to 90 degrees. it will blow cold ac just fine. i finally got the temps to running back normal and drove it about 30 miles on highway and in town with no problem then all of a sudden it got hot. after cooling down to normal running temps we were able to go about another 15 miles before it decided to get hot again. after it cooled back down to normal temps we drove it about 4 miles with no problem. i then turned the heat on and it was all of a sudden blowing hot air.

do you think i just have air still in the system? would that allow me to drive nearly 30 miles with the ac on wide open with no trouble them bam it gets hot?

i was suspecting the dccv but multiple post state that when it goes bad you will have heat and not air and my symptoms are backwards of that. any way to diagnoss the dccv?

i tried to do the datc test and one side counted up to 25 while the other side counted down from 25 and at the end it displayed something like 88 -188. did i do that correctly?

any ideas on what i can do to narrow down my problem?

much appreciated guys!

 

[Hawk03]

If your blowing cold air then you can almost certainly rule out your DCCV at least for the over heating issue.

Does your fan run on high with the A/C on? If it just runs and doesn't kick on high, it could be your hydro fan actuator. It will be fine on the highway since air is moving but when you come to a stop it won't run enough to cool the engine.

http://www.lincolnvscadillac.com/showthread.php?t=64780&highlight=hydralic+fan+sensor

Have you ever changed your degas bottle? If not you may want to just to rule it out since that is a common issue. Sometimes you may not be able to see the cracks because it will expand when the system becomes pressurized then let air in the system.

 

[hite337]

+1^^^ the degas bottle will usually not drip when out of the car. Its when it becomes hot and pressurized that the cracks open up. The cracks are very hard to see and are very small. This is the most common issue causing overheating.

The hydraulic fan is also a likely culprit. Or there may be another plastic component somwhere that has failed (t-stat housing, fill tower, etc)

 

[scjmc]

Mine used to do this randomly where it would be fine and suddenly the temp would shoot up. If there is air in the system you can get air pockets in the heads (or so I have heard). Each head has a temp sensor and if either head is too hot at that sensor location it will trigger the temp gauge all the way up. I had a leak in the Tstat housing that only happened at high RPM. I was able to find it when I had my wife rev the engine while I looked. Long story short when the engine got literally one or two cups low on cooland I would get the overheat.