overheating... quick question

[Baas140]

hey guys,
on my way home from school today, i noticed the temp guage went from normal, to redline real quick... i quickly pulled over and shut the car off... there was not smoke or anything... i sat about 10 minutes, turned it on and took off again... again the temp went from normal to red within 2 or so miles... im thinking its the thermostat considering i saw no fluids leaking at all.. am i right? i dont think i did any damage or anything either considering i heard no strange noises or saw no smoke or steam at all... but my question is, where exactly is the thermostat? id like to check replace it and see if that helps... thanks alot guys, and please pardon my retardation when it comes to cars...

its a 2001 v8

 

[Dirty Dave]

Overheating Problem

Hi Baas140,

I just joined the forum but have been reading it for a long while. I have an 02LS V8 which I bought two years ago. Last December I had this same problem.

The car is still under an extended warranty so I had it towed to the dealership. They replaced the thermostat which didn't cure the problem so they replaced the hydraulic fans. While doing this they discovered the head gaskets leaking so they were replaced as well.

That seems to have cured the overheating problem.

Good luck,

Dirty Dave

 

[lseguy]

You need to fix this and QUICK. Cant have the car going into the red zone over and over, or you will blow a head gasket..or worse.

Assuming you truly have NO leaks (check the ground behind the drivers side wheel..thats where the most common leak (hairline cracks in underside of coolant tank) ends up) at all, and assuming your fan is working fine, you either have air bubbles in your cooling system, a faulty thermostat, or both. Im going to guess its a cooling flow issue and not the fans due to the speed (2 minutes) at which the overheating condition is occurring.

You can bleed your cooling system easily yourself, in about 20 minutes. Replacing the thermostat on the V8 is also pretty easy, and can be done from under the hood, without having to get on the ground.

Do a search...the DIY for both tasks are on this site.

 

[97stscaddy]

Cant have the car going into the red zone over and over, or you will blow a head gasket..or worse.

The risk of popping a head gasket isn't as high with these cars as with older Lincolns or the older 5.0 and 4.6 engines. The difference is they had iron blocks, the LS has an aluminum block. What makes the gaskets "blow out" on the older engines is that the cylinders heads, which are aluminum, get warped due to the different expansion rates of iron and aluminum. With aluminum heads on an aluminum block, the rate of expansion is nearly the same, so theres less risk of warping that will cause the gaskets to leak. Now I'm not saying that its ok to let the car overheat repeatedly. There are other things that happen when an engine overheats which can hurt it worse than a bad head gasket. I'm just saying that if it does overheat, you don't need to worry too much about the head gaskets.

 

[Baas140]

i took lseguy's advice... i had a friend who knows cars pretty well come over and we replaced the thermostat and bled the cooling system... didnt take very long at all and went fairly smooth... its fine now with no overheating problems at all.. thanks for the help guys!