04 cooling issues with coolant system

[mysticsvt]

I'm about at my wits end. Ready to volunteer my car for the next Triple X movie for a cool stunt off a high bridge! I drove to Kennedy today and the car sprayed coolant all over the engine bay. There was tons of fluid in the overflow but little in the crossover. The car is kicking all the fluid back to the overflow from the engine for some reason. I was told to burp it and did to the best of my ability so I must not be doing it rite or its something else. Any help would be greatly appreciated-Shane

 

[mysticsvt]

Reading about the petcock valve on the water pump, anyone know about this?-Shane

 

[mysticsvt]

Used the search earlier, no luck. Seems tho that the hose before the thermostat comming from the engine is hot and after the thermostat to the radiator is not. Thermostat bad? -Shane

 

[mysticsvt]

Took the thermostat out, boiled it...nothing. So...new one tomorrow and then see what happens-Shane

 

[2004silvercobra]

just got to burp it right and your good to go. fill up to level and place your radiator cap back on and dont take off. now take the crossover tube plug out and fill this till water/coolant is to the top. do this while the car is off and while its full place plug back in and run car. if u have a predator go into it so u can see your temps. u can also till by your fans turning on and off, if its not burped right fans will stay on. t stat i think is fine.

 

[mysticsvt]

just got to burp it right and your good to go. fill up to level and place your radiator cap back on and dont take off. now take the crossover tube plug out and fill this till water/coolant is to the top. do this while the car is off and while its full place plug back in and run car. if u have a predator go into it so u can see your temps. u can also till by your fans turning on and off, if its not burped right fans will stay on. t stat i think is fine.

Did all that several times to no avail. Shouldnt the Tstat open when you go to boil it? It never did from cold water up to boiling so I think its bad. Gonna replace it first and then if I have to get a friend to burp it with vacuum-Shane

 

[ShelbyGuy]

your tstat stuck shut, as you surmised.

 

[mysticsvt]

To be on the safe side..which way does the thermo go back in? Pretty sure I did it the way it came out but now same issues and hose is hot before and not after as before and I have leaking and the two bolts are tight enough-Shane

 

[mysticsvt]

Well, this is currently where I am. I took the thermostat housing off from the 4 hoses. I wanted to see how this thing looked internally, verify the oring seating surface and insure no cross threading due to hose tension. I had it in rite the first time as I thought. The new thermostat is shorter which seems to make no difference. The hole to allow water to flow through is smaller but if it opens up more then its no different. It is a cross reference numbered thermo from the parts store. It also as you can see in the 2nd picture has a small hole in it. I read in one thread that I searched that some people drill a small hole so I found it interesting that this one came with it. I had some leakage through even though the bolts were tight, oring was seated properly, even with no pressure. So I used to emory cloth to make sure the surface was free of nicks and corrosion. The hose comming from the overflow tank was rather dirty, gonna check on that some more. Thanks agian and more to come I'm sure-Shane

 

[cobra23]

Here is a thermostat page that says the thermostat has to be indexed.

Service and Repair

Thermostat - 4.6L(4V)

Removal and Installation

1. With the vehicle in neutral, position it on a hoist.
2. Drain the engine coolant.
3. Remove the thermostat housing bolts.
4. Remove the coolant thermostat.

1 Separate the thermostat housing.
2 Remove the coolant thermostat and the O-ring seal.

* Inspect the O-ring seal. Install a new seal, if necessary.

5. NOTE: The thermostat is indexed and must be returned to the original location. NOTE: Make sure the new O-ring seal is secure around the thermostat. To install, reverse the removal procedure.
6. Fill the cooling system.

 

[mysticsvt]

Thanks..did all that. The problem now is that I cant get the thermostat housing to stop leaking. I took the entire assy apart and put it together away from the hoses. The thermo is installed correctly and it is tight. Now...its metal to medal and I know that doesnt give a great seal. I didnt see anything on it as far as a gasket. So has anyone ever done this on an 03-04 and did you have a gasket or not? I bought some sealant but wanted to consult the masses first-Shane

 

[mysticsvt]

Installed..the rite way this time and all is fine. Working on the burping process but gonna take it to a dealer. Not sure if this solves the initial problem but def a step in the rite direction-Shane

 

[mysticsvt]

More info..

Data loged with the predator at idle.

The fan did come on both high and low speed this time.
Engine coolant went from 208 to 232 and started puking fluid out of the overflow cap like a heartbeat.(little bit every second but pause in between)
The air intake temp read 123 and jumped to 128. Rant he car for about 10 minutes during this process. Car was still alittle warm to start with. Guage inside read little past the normal point but never went deep. Any insight much appreciated-Shane

 

[mysticsvt]

Something else to ponder...
When I take off the cross over tube cap off with the car running it isnt flowing in any one direction. Just sorta jumping around with the engine. Also the tube before the thermostat is hot but after is cold. I replaced it with one that I know works. Could these be symptons that the car has a faulty water pump, or still possible that air is in the system?-Shane

 

[flyn high again]

Maybe your 2nd thermostat is also faulty? You could leave the thermostat out or drill several holes in your old thermostat to allow constant coolant flow and run the car to see if it overheats. If it stays cool, get another thermostat. If it still overheats, your problem is elsewhere. Make sure to fill through the crossover tube and burp the anti freeze several times to get the air out of the system.

 

[Bullitt54]

Thermostat

Removing Stat probably won't prove anything, Cobra uses a bypass style Stat. :shrug:

When closed it routes all the coolant back to the motor bypassing radiator. But when it opens it progressively closes the bypass and routes more coolant to radiator. They did this to maintain flow and help equalize temps in the engine.

You must use the correct length Stat since the shorter Stat won't be able to fully close off the bypass, same problem happens if you put wrong Stat in Powerstroke. Even if open, most of the coolant is bypassing radiator....

 

[mysticsvt]

Removing Stat probably won't prove anything, Cobra uses a bypass style Stat. :shrug:

When closed it routes all the coolant back to the motor bypassing radiator. But when it opens it progressively closes the bypass and routes more coolant to radiator. They did this to maintain flow and help equalize temps in the engine.

You must use the correct length Stat since the shorter Stat won't be able to fully close off the bypass, same problem happens if you put wrong Stat in Powerstroke. Even if open, most of the coolant is bypassing radiator....

Interesting...car is at the dealership and in a tech's hands who is also a friend. The new thermo was also bad, and..alot of air in the coolant system. Pump is fine, head gaskets are fine. He said it will be fine this morning so look forward to the call. Then I get to dignose why I'm running on 7 cylinders. That shouldnt be too hard. Then I get to clean the engine bay of coolant and replace the coolant screwed belt with a new one. Thanks for all the input guys, another post shortly as I look forward to closing this "short story"-shane

 

[rrpederson]

hmm, i had this problem also in a car that i had for about a week and then gave back because the motor was hurt pretty bad. that is a whole other long painful story. the car i had overheated on me like 8 hrs after buying it. i did not trouble shoot like u did. but when i brought it to them they did a compression and leak down test and the car failed miserably both times. what the guys at hpp performance in lewsville thought, was that under boost, one or both of the heads was lifting ever so slightly, and actually putting boost into the cooling veins inside the motor, causing the fluid to be pushed out and it overheating. im not trying to scare u or anything, but
they tols me that they ran into that problem with that particular car before.
unless u beat the crap out of your car then u probably just have a problem with something in the coolant system and it shouldnt be as big of a deal as what i described. i dont know how much this helped if any, but i was just sharing what happened to me. do u beat the crap out of your car? if so, if i was in your situation, i would just get the those tests done for my own peace of mind. i offered this post because it seemed like u did quite a bit of your own troubleshooting with out any luck. i just hope and prey that its not what i described. good luck dude.

richie

 

[mysticsvt]

Brand new motor, brand new KB so no I have not beat on the car. It has not worked rite since I got the car back. Little harder to take it back to the dealership to say fix it rite after everthing is on it now. It has over heated several times and I pray that I didnt do damage to it due to those times. Once it died in traffic and 4 times it puked up its coolant so hope not too bad on the engine. At the moment..everything tested out good, heads, pump etc. Last I heard at 9 last night the new thermo was not opening and there was alot of air in the engine. So this morning a new thermo and new coolant. He said its all fine and 99% sure it was just those 2 things. We shall see, ty-Shane

 

[mysticsvt]

Cars back in the garage all better now. Here is a tip..DO NOT go to an auto part store and ask for a thermostat. The one they gave me for my car was not for 180 but for 193 and too short to work properly.(as mentioned) She just needed a new thermo and coolant minus the air. Really appreciate all the help guys..really-Shane:beer: