overheating

beachcruzer · Post by **beachcruzer** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 1:38 am

hey all,

stumbled onto this awesome forum while surfing for a solution. i got a 83 tercel 4wd sr5 wagon. pretty much been thru the wars....rusted beyond belief......but still hell a reliable. i do all the repairs since its not worth paying someone else to. i have done quite a bit of repair to it, so i will watch the forum and input when needed.
anyway, was overheating, had a heater hose leak. repaired, then noticed that the radiator cooling fan is not going on at all. i know that it is probably something easy. tried to spin the fan manually, seems stuck. almost like the clutch is not releasing. figured someone will know right off the bat......

mahaloz,
island style

takza · Post by **takza** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 3:54 am

As far as I know...the fan defaults to RUN...in other words, if the temp control sensor goes haywire...it runs all the time.

It's an electric fan....so if it's stuck...it's no good...bearings froze?

MootsMan · Post by **MootsMan** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 9:53 am

I had the same problem last Thanksgiving day....started the car to warm it up, came back out a bit later, and steam was pouring out from under the hood. Temp gauge pegged out , cracked tank on top of the radiator.

I get a radiator from the junkyard, install it, and my cooling fan isn't working at all. I sprayed some WD40 or some kind of lube into the bearing on the fan and got it to work some, but it was toast. Back to the junkyard for a cooling fan and it works, but it's staying on all the time, so when I checked the relay, I discovered that someone had taken the relay out and bypassed it with a wire. Installled the relay ( AGAIN from the junkyard! ) and it's been good as new since !

A word on the radiator if you ever have to replace it ..... some come with transmission oil coolers ( I think that's what it is), some don't . My original one didnt' have it, but the replacement does....two outlets on the lower tank area of the radiator. I connected a piece of hose from one outlet to the other, but I dont' think anything actually circulates through there from the radiator. Am I right on this info, guys ??

beachcruzer · Post by **beachcruzer** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 11:24 am

much mahaloz for the tips guys!!

after posting, took a look at the fan. tried to spin it and it is super duper stuck, probably rusted like the rest of my cruzer. was getting late so didn't get time to complete, i should be able to take a better look today. possible wd40 fix or a trip to the junkyard, just like mootsman suggested. will post the outcome.....

takza>thats a cool fish!!

Adelard of Bath · Post by **Adelard of Bath** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 10:01 pm

Those tranny cooler lines are completely isolated from the other "circuit" in the radiator, so you don't have to worry about it Moots. I took one apart one time (different car but presumably the same) and it was just a section of tubing that went from one fitting to the other, straight shot, like four inches long.
If you think about it, the part of the radiator you are using flows antifreeze, while the tranny cooler part would flow ATF, and they never mix, so the tubes can't be connected.

Maybe you could do something fun with it, like...hook a coffee machine up to it or something

MootsMan · Post by **MootsMan** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 11:34 pm

Now I like that idea !! This is off topic, of course, but I guess we have a little discretion for digression. Ha !! We should start a thread about how much coffee each one of us has spilled in our cars, given the lack of a cupholder or even a surface adequate to set a cup on.....I have one of those bell-shaped commuter cups, and about the only safe place for it is on the floor !! Anyway, u started this thread about overheating , right Beachcruzer ?? so you guys think a coffee maker hooked to the radiator would overheat the coffee ??

I'm not drunk, it's just been an extremely long day ! :wacko:

takza · Post by **takza** » Wed Feb 02, 2005 6:16 am

I bought an el cheapo plastic cup holder and mounted it to the trans tunnel on the pass side just in front of the dash...works OK. Should make one out of wood and use 2 sheetmetal screws to mount it.

The trans cooler outlets could be used as a fuel heater. Or install some kind of pump for your coffee.

Lateer · Post by **Lateer** » Wed Feb 02, 2005 4:47 pm

Oil cooler for serious four-wheel-driving?

I once read somewhere that during high-rev, low-speed four-wheel-driving that the oil temperature gets up to about 120 degrees C.

This was from someone who drilled and tapped a whole heap of plugs into a Landcruiser engine to see oil temp, water temp, water pressure, oil pressure, etc.

I think this would make the oil too viscous to be really useful, though.

Adelard of Bath · Post by **Adelard of Bath** » Thu Feb 03, 2005 12:03 am

Sorry, don't drink coffee, but I ALWAYS have a pop cup from some fast food joint, ALWAYS.....and it always sat rather nicely in that little bucket behind your elbow, the one over the parking brake lever.

As for spilling, I know a guy who used to have a Plymouth Horizon/Dodge Omni and he attempted to eat a Whopper while driving on the highway to visit me while I was in college, and he dumped ALOT of the toppings onto the plastic bit under the parking brake lever....where they proceeded to dry and were there until the day he got rid of the car years later! hehheheh well I mean, on some road trips, I was bored and somehwat grossified, so I scraped the majority of the chunks out of there, but there was always that pinkish residue...

Oh and same guy, different car, this time an 86 Corolla, We stopped in Wyoming at this "Maverick" convenience store, where they had pop that was like 89 cents for the big 44ounce size (in retrospect, possibly not the best thing for a roadtrip, but hey, what else you gonna do for fun?) with free refills....we say "what are we gonna do, drive 400 miles back here and get a refill?" so we get it anyway, and get in the car, still in the parking lot, for some reason I can't remember, the entire STILL FULL 44ounce cup goes "SPLOOSH" into the passenger footwell and into my boots! that was nice....hehehheheh so somebody sez "guess we will be needing that refill" hehehhehehhehehhehehhehe

Ah the old roadtrips.....the college daze.......too bad those days are over!

Now I feel sorry for beachcruiser, from whom we hijacked this thread, and now he gets email saying there is an answer to his overheating problem, and he comes here and reads stories about coffee and whoppers and pop?

That's interesting about the oil temps though! (on topic)

Flashman · Post by **Flashman** » Mon Jun 25, 2007 2:45 pm

Bit of a side note.

I ended up with a problem involvong overheating. A direct result of very steep, very long logging roads requiring 4wd.

I've got the automatic, so I ended up installing a truck sized trany cooler upstream of the rad. Put it in place of the AC evaporator I don't have.

Picked up a rad fan from a sprint or some such thing at the wreckers, basicly the smallest pushing fan I could find. Wired up a relay in conjunction with the existing fan control circuit.

It's fully automatic, only runs when the stock fan runs. Seems to have made a significant impact on the over heating problem. The temp still spikes high, but the idiot light doesn't come on anymore. The ATF doesn't appear to be burning either.

Probably gives it a bit more power to the wheels under high load too, keeping the oil from losing all it's viscocity.

takza · Post by **takza** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 2:54 am

You might want to flush in some Mobil 1 synth ATF and use some Lubegard additive? Heat is supposed to really trash the ATF.

There's some info in the repair section.

Sounds like you have a good trans cooling setup there.

How does an auto do in the outback? Do you have enough torque for the really steep stuff?

Flashman · Post by **Flashman** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 11:43 pm

takza,

Car manages alright, although a bit more clearance would be nice. I changed the ATF after installing the cooler. The old stuff was toast.

The only time I've run into serious problems with lack of torque is on hills I really should not have been on. Most anything that was intended for a vehicle of some kind is fine. Poor car just has to work a little harder.

More power would definitely be an asset on the big hills though. It would be nice to go more then 10km/hr at times.

One thing I forgot to mention was I also end up running the heater full blast, out the windows. Makes a pretty significant difference.

takza · Post by **takza** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 4:38 am

Flashman wrote:One thing I forgot to mention was I also end up running the heater full blast, out the windows. Makes a pretty significant difference.

Have had to do that in the desert as a last resort...beats waiting for it to cool or walking.