Weird "over heating" issue.

[Jeffery Wright]

I apologize if my issues have been previously addressed, I just don't have time to read through all of the postings today because I'm at work and starting to get very sleep from reading the post and i only made it to page 6.

I bought a 2000 Lincoln LS last night, In its posting it said it had an overheating issue and I read through some threads yesterday and found it can be a common issue with the degas bottle or the hydraulic fan. Then on top of that I thought it would be a simple thing as I have had other cars before with an overheating issue as well. So I figured it would be like thermostat or heater core or something along those lines.

However what I found was a really weird issue. I figured seeing where the car was for sale to my parents’ house I should be able to get it home without it overheating as it was only 6 miles and I also figured if it started to overheat I would be able to limp it there.

So after purchasing before the drive I popped the hood and saw that the fan didn’t seem to be turning. Then I started on the drive and after about a mile to a mile and a half the car said it was hitting about middle mark for temp and I figured normal operating temp cool. Then in the blink of an eye it shot up to hot and a message came across the lcd in the speedo to pull over and shut the car down. I figured there was no way it was over heating and it should still make it. Then low and behold 30 seconds later it shut itself down. So I pulled over and got out popped the hood.

Now this is where it gets really weird for me. The fan seems to be spinning at high speed. So I figured that was a plus but I was also miffed at the fact that it had no signs of a car overheating that I have seen before (no smoke or leak or anything). I then grabbed the coolant hoses from the radiator to the motor and neither of them was warm. I then put my hands all over the motor and it didn’t feel warm at all.

Since I am in Michigan and it was 40 degrees last night I waited about 10 minutes and it said it was cooled down, so I started on the journey again and played the same game 4 more times on my six mile drive until I was able to get it to my parents’ house.

Now the sucky part is my LS is at my parents’ house and I live an hour away. So I am hoping that someone might have some thoughts of things for me to try when I am able to make it over there this weekend.

 

[joegr]

1. It's not just the degas bottle. It's all the other plastic cooling system parts too. Search using Google site search.
2. The cooling fan should spin all the time that the engine is running, it's speed should vary as needed.
3. There's no LCD (liquid crystal display) in the LS cluster. It's a vacuum fluorescent display, which is very different from LCD.
4. It's likely that your cooling system is so full of air from various leaks from tiny cracks in the plastic parts that coolant is unable to circulate. While the radiator and some parts of the engine can be very cool, the cylinders can be very hot. The gauge is buffered, so it quickly goes from mid reading to hot. If the the heads go over temperature, then the gauge will go from mid range to full hot instantly.
5. It's possible (but less likely than cracking cooling parts) that you have a problem with the head temperature sensor or the wiring to it.

 

[Jeffery Wright]

joegr. Thank you for your response. I have ordered a few of the parts that I can think of. The guy sent me a message and said he forgot to mention that he was told there was an issue with the intake gasket as well.

So I ordered a new degas bottle and intake gasket as well as the heater control valve as he asked if the heat work working for me as it didn't work for him for the last month.

So I show all parts are out for delivery today, so I will be wrenching tomorrow.

 

[vinnie]

I had a similar problem heat would only work sometimes and car would over heat it was getting air pockets it was the degas bottle where the line goes from fill cap on motor to the degas bottle in the degas bottle where that line attaches inside the bottle is a metal elbow that comes disconnected and falls to the bottom of the tank and this causes air to be pulled back in to the motor once I found that problem and replaced the bottle problem is gone I'm new to this site I can tell you how to check if needed