Dave,
As Doug, Jan, Bill and John have noted, you should NOT be puking coolant at
a 205 degree engine temp, especially at 50 degrees ambient outside. The
rules John gave you are a good place to start.
First thing you need to do is to find out where you are puking fluid from,
and is your loss of coolant in liquid form or steam. Jan's suggestion of a
test kit is a good idea at this point. Also try: letting your car idle in
the driveway until it comes up to temp and starts steaming or expelling
coolant. Second thing is to check the calibration on your temp gauge.
Borrow a Fluke meter from someone who has a temp probe attached. I'd let
you borrow mine, but it's a long drive from the Bay Area to San Diego. Good
question here: is your gas gauge reading accurately?? If not, you may have
a problem with your voltage regulator for the gauges, which is located under
the dash.
If you discover it is steam that is escaping, Bill is correct that you most
probably have air in your system. Burping can help but I am not sure it
will cure your problem. I would suspect that if this is the case you have
some cavitation occurring in your system, which could be caused by a number
of factors, including improper hoses or partial radiator blockage. I would
also look into Jan's notion that a portion of your radiator may be blocked.
How old is the radiator?? Has it ever been "rodded-out"?? Contacting the
PO and getting some history on the car would be very helpful.
Providing your beast is completely stock (some will not agree with me) I
personally see no need to modify the cooling system other than to go to a
four-row hi-efficiency core. You should only do this if you whittle the
problems down to a blocked radiator or bad water pump. Either way, to get
to this stuff, you gotta remove it, so why do it twice.
Based on what you have told us, I am suspicious of two things: 1) Radiator,
or 2) Water pump. With regard to the radiator, it sounds from your
description that you have a leak, if so there is also a great probability
that you have a partial blockage of scale in the thing. These could easily
lead to the formation of steam, secondary to cavitation. With water pumps,
the thing that usually craps out is the bearing. This is easy to diagnose
by removing the fan belt and seeing if you can move the shaft on the water
pump by moving the fan blades. Also, there is a weep hole under the shaft
of the water pump.....if coolant appears to be coming out of this hole, no
matter how the shaft feels the bearing near the impeller is about to crap
out. Personally, I have never seen steam come out of this weep hole before,
usually just liquid coolant.
The occurrence of steam and the rapid temperature rise at speed make me
think of cavitation (formation of bubbles and air pockets,) being the real
culprit.
Not to worry, your car is just giving you a warning. Running at 205 will
not (IMHO) do any real damage to your car, and (again IMHO) running at 180
is just a little cool. 190 to 200 is about optimum.
Sorry to the list for the long post. I have attempted to avoid duplication.
Dave: good luck, let us know what you find out and how we can help.
Allan
B9472373
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-tigers@autox.team.net [mailto:owner-tigers@autox.team.net] On
Behalf Of Dave Binkley
Sent: Friday, July 03, 1998 9:11 PM
To: 'tigers@autox.team.net'
Subject: Overheating
I've had my Tiger for 6 months and 700 miles so far and have watched the
list talk about Tiger's puking coolant. Have felt real secure in the
observation that so far I haven't seen the temp gauge go north of 180 so
far through a wide range of driving conditions. Last Monday morning the
guage hit 205 after a 20 minute freeway run at 70 mph (outside air temp
was a cool 50 degrees - fog in the bay area), but cooled down to 170
after getting off of the freeway and driving through town. Tuesday
night it did the same thing when I brought the car home. Odd.
This afternoon I checked the coolant tank and it was low so I added
water to the half way mark. Even checked it with a popcicle stick.
Took the car up the freeway 10 miles and back at 70 mph, took it awhile
but it did go up to 200 on the gauge. As I was pulling into the garage
at home, the car let out a howl and dumped most of the coolant within
about a minute. It was hard to determine exactly where it was coming
from, the garage was dark, and I wasn't real thrilled about sticking my
head down in all that steam and hissing. It was definitely coming from
somewhere below or near the water pump and stopped once the level got
down to wherever it was leaking from. I was late and had to run to
dinner with my wife so left the car to cool down.
Just got home, checked things over with the flashlight and couldn't see
anything obvious. Added some water, took about 3/4 gallon. Fired it up
and went back up the freeway. Got it back to the house and shut down
before it hit 200, but it was headed there. Everything was nice and dry
- no obvious leaks.
So, what's going on. 13 lb radiator cap on the coolant tank. Stock
260. I figure either the thermostat is not opening or the water pump is
shot. I can easily check the thermostat tomorrow morning. Is there an
easy way to check out the water pump short of pulling it?
Any other suggestions? Have not yet calibrated the gauge so not sure
how accurate it is. But, if it is reasonably accurate, this shouldn't
happen at 205 - 210 should it.
Thanks for the help.
Dave
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