rev up your engine's, okay here we go
you got an overheating car in this case it's a PT Cruiser, there are literally
dozens of things that can make a car overheat so where do you start, well you
start with the most obvious things you can find, and what's in it okay it's got
Bo 300 multiple misfires it's got PR 128 coolant thermostat below
regulating temperature, and again the misfires and no definition found that
fascinating, but when we look over here that's for the TCM that's for the
transmission control module so that probably won't have anything with the
engine overheating, we'll ignore that for the time being,
so the codes hey, the engine's misfiring but is the engine misfiring because the
engines overheating, or is something making the edge and misfiring that
causes the engine to overheat well that wasn't all that much help so
let's check the coolant level next, well look inside here and lo and behold you
can't even see the coolant so it's low on coolant, now there's a whole bunch of
reasons you could be low on coolant leaking radiator cap, leak in the system,
overeating engine but since this engines cold here's a quick test, what you can
do is start the engine up cold with a cap off, then put your hand over the
radiator cap hole, now I don't feel any pressure coming out, so the ehad gasket
isn't completely blown, if my hand would of had a lot of pressure
coming out on an ice cold engine when you started it where you remove the
radiator cap from, that would mean the head gasket is so far gone it's just blowing
smoke up through there and you know the engine would need work, but in this case
that's not happening so, for the time being we're just gonna put some water in
the system to check for leaks, now while we're doing this we're gonna turn on the
a/c full blast to see if the cooling fan works then, here we go
I can feel the cooling fan blowing really strong, so we
know the cooling fan works fine with the AC on,
but sometimes the cooling fan does not work right when the AC is off, their two
separate systems, because when you turn the AC on it's supposed to turn the
cooling fan on the radiator on to suck air through the radiator and the AC
condenser that's in front of the radiator so the AC blow cold, but
when you're driving a car with the AC off it's a different system and that works
that when the sensor for that system sees the temperature gets to a certain
amount of degrees, it'll turn the cooling fans on and then when it cools down they
go off, and then when it gets hotter again it'll go on, so I'm going to turn
the AC off now and let it idle and see if the fans come on and off, this might
take a little while but hey that's the life of figuring out why your car is
overheating, so we'll turn the AC off and now we'll go to the fan here, stick our
hand behind it and we don't feel it it's not moving, so now we have to wait
for the engine to warm up, now here's the temperature gauge once it starts to warm up
we got a watch to see that those fans come on, it's a very common problem with
these things that the original system doesn't turn the fans on, now while we're
waiting for it to warm up here's a tip, let's say your car starting to overheat
especially in traffic and if you turn the AC on and it stops overheating and
the temperature goes back down, hey just drive around with the AC on
at least for the interim you're not hurting anything, this may or may not be the
problem we don't know, we gotta wait until the car warms up to see if that
cooling fan comes on by itself with the AC off, now while we're waiting this is
the time that you need to know everything about the car possible, in
this case I asked the customer he said the car was wrecked in the front
some body work done and some radiator work done, it could easily be they messed
with the sensors that turn the cooling fan on it could be the whole problem, but
we gotta wait until we see whether it comes on or not, because if it comes on well
that's not the problem, well the temperature gauge is starting to get a
little higher so let's go under the hood and
see what's happening with the fan, I hear something and lo and behold it's on, so
that system is working, the fans coming on, well now what are we gonna do now I
gotta figure out why is it overheating, well I just figured one thing out the
fan just kicked in full blast you can hear them and when I put my hand behind the
radiator fan it's blowing like mad but it's cool air, that should be hot air
so for some reason the radiator isn't getting enough hot water in it, and just
and yes now it's starting to overheat to get it into the hot zone so we'll turn it off,
so I'm gonna get this little temperature tester out and
it was 19 bucks or so we're gonna try to find where there's a restriction to keep
the water from getting into the radiator so it'll dissipate the heat with a fan,
we'll take a few temperature readings the top is 199 but the bottom here
is only 108, so the water not coming from the top to the bottom, and guess
what the thermostat is in here, so we're just gonna change the thermostat let's
pray it's that cheap of a fix, so we'll move some stuff out of the way and unbolt
the thermostat, and there's a stupid thing, this is supposed to be
closed when it's cold and open when it's hot, you saw it
getting hot it didn't open so we're gonna replace the thermostat, now when
you put the new thermostat in you got to make sure that the knotch goes the right
way, there's a notch right here fits right in, as you can see right here it
fits right in the notch it's nice and tight and it won't fall out when you put
it back in, then you tighten the housing back on, and we'll fill it full of
coolant, put the cap back on nice and tight, then start it up and see
what father time he has to say about it ehating after it warms up
remember there's no shortcuts when it comes to time, you gotta let it run till
it warms up, then see if the fan comes on, if it does
odds are it's fixed, you still need to road test it for half an hour so you see how it
does on the highway, but it was overheating just idling before and if it stops now
that should be it, and here we go I hear the fans coming on, and when I
stick my hands in, the air is blowing and this time it's warm air, it's not cool
air, it means it's actually circulating, and as we can see on a temperature gauge
look it's staying pretty much around the middle it's not going up to the H
like it was before, so if you never want to miss another one of my new car repair
videos, remember to ring that Bell!
