Overheating...was it radiator sealer?

[crazypete]

I installed a second trans cooler this weekend and summarily shredded a hole in my radiator with the clamp zip-tie thingy. I got some of that black tar looking radiator sealer with the nuggets and poured it in and it stopped the leak cold. The next day, I drove it to the shop to get my 4.56's installed and noticed a bit higher temperature (1 notch above middle on the stock cluster ~220) on the highway. I was driving around today and we were covering the "n" in normal! Thats like 250-255 easy in cooler weather with rain. Since I leaked out most of my coolant, I am running almost straight water right now. So my question is..

1. Do those radiator sealant mixtures clog the radiator? Is this my problem? I'm getting some flush tommorrow

2. I have 2 trans coolers side by side covering the entire front of the radiator. Was this not a good idea? That stock AC evaporator core thing covers the entire front too, doesnt it? Do I need a gap? Theyre flush up against the radiator. (trans is ice cold! That or my temp sender doesnt belong in the TV port.)

3. I'm taching 2500-2750 on the highway. I shouldnt have cooling problems because of just that....should I? I dont mind rpms except for the heat issue.

I know the water pump is sucking because I opened the radiator hot (they really do explode if you open them! =P ) and then had to refill it with water since I squirted my coolant absolutely everywhere. When I started the car, the radiator emptied as all the water was sucked in and I had to refill it again. Mixture is almost perfect stoichiometric says my mixture guage and no vacuum leaks (20 solid hg at idle) and no reason to suspect bad timing from the great driveability. Stumped....

[Capri306]

Could be an air bubble you introduced whilst popping the cap. Never a good idea, you know that now... But yes, that's kinda putting a lot of restriction in front of the radiator there. The heat from the transmission oil is being transferred to the air passing through the coolers, and then that air can't pick up any more heat from the radiator. I noticed my temps come up to normal quicker after I added a massive trans oil cooler, but I don't think 220-225 is anything to worry about, really. Normal is normal. However, 250 is starting to trip off alarm bells in my head! I think you should remove that extra trans cooler and try to burp the cooling system of any air bubbles. Oh, while you're at it, get a mix of 50/50 in there so the metals are protected and you have more boil-over protection.

[GhettoPop]

i agree, flush it and try to get the air out of the system. make sure not to flush to aggressive sinve you might bust open your original leak. put in 50/50 mix and try some water wetter by redline, its good stuff.

i think the two coolers are your problem. u can get creative and put another fan in front of the coolers. of you can remove one or both tranny coolers and relocate them with their own small electric fan(s). maybe use a lower t-stat? don't think it would help but woth a shot.

what trpe of fan are use using? t-stat? how old is the radiator? a lot of corrosion? oh yeah, DON'T put silicone in the radiator!

[crazypete]

Darn! I had the silicone bottle ready to go! =P I figured it has metal protective value and might change the boiling point of the water enough. My plans are foiled!

I am using the nice mechanical stock clutch fan that had no problems cooling the car before, the stock ...190?...degree thermostat which isnt that old (unless it is now sealed open with the radiator sealer). Radiator was a junkyard item but was the cleanest looking inside and out at the place.

Pure water should have ridicoulous temperature transfer capabilities, right? It should work better than 50/50. How does one burp a cooling system short of sticking the garden hose in the radiator.

So two crazy pete ideas...

1. Stack the coolers on top of eachother. Then half the radiator is uncovered. I dont know if I'll make the coolers useless then and make that half of the radiator useless. I was told to route through the stock radiator cooler and then into the aftermarket tru-cool 28k gvw and then back to the trans. I bypassed the radiator and used 2 tru-cools. I dont know if one tru-cool would be enough by itself. Are 2 28,000 gvw's crazy overkill?

2. I need a cabin heater anyway.... I could mount it in the cabin underneath the fresh air intake for the now missing blower core. That gets it's air from the cowl: where the wiper machinery is. Dont know if thats enough airflow to cool the transmission though. Might as well serve 2 useful purposes.

Dont know any other place to mount a cooler. I dont think the fenders recieve enough airflow....

[stang_racer20]

Best way to fill a cooling system is to use a vacuum fill tool(unsure of exact name). I got one coming from our MAC guy this week for like $90. Otherwise fill the radiator and over flow to level and run with heat on vent and fan on high. Check your temp gauge and heat regularly. When gauge reaches operating temp the stat should open and draw in remaining needed coolant. Fill reservoir up to the proper level as its drawing in coolant. Do all this with the radiator cap off. Once it's done drawing in coolant, the temp is holding normal, and you have good heat you should be good to go. Cap it off, let it idle for 10ish minutes and recheck heat and gauge. If its normal your good to go.

[GhettoPop]

stock t-stat is 190 or 192. i had a robertshaw high flow 180 t-stat, it had three holes in it. my stock engine would not even reach operating temp with it! i dont think its the cause of your problem, but might be an easy solution.

yes water should cool, better than 50/50, but will not lubricate the water pump and stop corrosion in the system. i really suggest a 70/30water or 80/20water and a bottle of water wetter, its good stuff, read the directions.

fill the cooling system as stangracer 20 described, sounded on point.

the fan clutch could be warn out, try spinning the fan by hand with the engine off, the fan should stop as soon as u let go. if it continues to spin, your fan clutch is beat.

i would not stack the coolers. an electric pusher fan mounted in front of the coolers would solve all your problems.

why do u need 2 tranny coolers anyways? why not just get one large one with its own electric fan and you can mount is anywhere! best solution IMO if you really want a lot of cooling. don't overcool your tranny, it too needs to be a the right operating temp. w/o a trans temp gauge, u might be overcooling your tranny fluid and do damage w/o even knowing it!

[crazypete]

What should be the operating temp for an AOD? I think I am WAY overcooling it! Temp reads 110 degrees on the highway. I also have the temp sender in the TV port so maybe it's also not getting a good reading from in there......but it does shift really HARD into OD now, I've been noticing. I am avoiding electric stuff like the plague and keeping it all mechanical. I think my fan clutch is perfect based on how you just described it...

[GhettoPop]

not sure what the temp should be in your AOD, do some research and find out. cover the trans coolers with some leather or something and take a drive. see if the temp goes up higher then usual, which it should. then see if it shifts as hard.

i have a tranny cooler in my 72 challenger and on cooler days the trans will take EXTRA long to reach operating temp and will shift hard until it reaches optimal temp. try what i said in the first paragraph, it may be an overcooling issue.

since you showed me the light on silicone, which i will be putting into my new speedo cable, i feel that i must help u with this one......

[crazypete]

After getting home last night, I dove under the car and removed one of the transmission coolers, bypassed the radiator and moved the other cooler to the bottom of the radiator. I also summarily ripped 3 more holes into the radiator when removing those silly pass-through zipties so I added some of that aluminum sealer, ran it till the new leaks stopped, flushed, added the flush, ran for 1/2 an hour, flushed, flushed again and filled it back up. Then I bled the brakes, Touched up the paint, waxed it and collapsed before I could test it.

The ford transmission folks at network 54 seem to think that 150 degrees is a happy place for the AOD to be.

http://www.network54.com/Forum/260730

Exactly how much fluid is in the block compared to the radiator? I would flush the radiator out then stop the motor and WHOOSH a ton of fluid would gush out of radiator....dirty fluid even though the radiator was clear water. I also notice that when I stop the motor....there is a loud TICK about 3-5 seconds later from the front and then I hear water rushing inside the engine. Are thermostats supposed to click?

[crazypete]

Well, now I got even bigger crazy overheating problems......says the temp guage. My instinct says different. The needle now rides above the 'n', right next to the red even off the highway and especially on it ...... but the car doesnt act like a car thats overheating. No backfires or detonation, smooth idle and the hood didnt feel super hot, just...normal hot. I passed my hand over the engine afterward and I just didnt get the sensation that it was red-hot, just regular hot.

I have 50/50 mix and the radiator is back to the configuration it was before when it had no heat problems: 1 trans cooler tucked near the bottom (trans is 150 degrees exact and the shifting is good. Takes a while to get to operating temp though). I think the thermostat is toast. Must be. Its the only component I havent tinkered with. The radiator, by the way...is one of the cleanest used I have seen. I looked down the filler cap and it didnt have a touch of that white crap on it anywhere. Maybe the sealer clogged some of the passages but that is all I can think of. It's the thermostat tommorrow then I am off to get a new radiator, I guess.

[GhettoPop]

so u removed 1 tranny cooler and now it shifts fine, i knew u were overcooling the tranny. since it takes a while to warm it, u may still be overcooling it, how long is "a while"? as for your current problem, u say its the exact same setup u used to run and u didnt over heat. what have u changed since then? your tstat may be your problem but i'm not sure. maybe your stock temp gauge is wrong, or your temp sensor could be reading incorrectly, stock gauges are crap. but the temp gauge fails at the same time u do cooling work? what are the chances? i wish u luck and post results

[rwhite65]

my car has an AOD and 4.10's. If I am driving it on the highway for a long trip, the temp will start to climb if the speeds are up near 3,000 (or a little more) rpms steadily.

To me, it sounds like some of that leak stop...has also stopped up some of the radiator cores. could be the gauge, but as ghettopop said, chances are slim that both would go bad at same time u added the stop leak.

just FYI, when I did the AOD swap...and researched it....the stuff I read said 160 degrees on the tranny was perfect. Near 180-190 would cut the transmissions life down greatly. See if I can find that sometime.
Ryan

[crazypete]

Well, if there was air in the coolant system, the temp would spike and drop but it stays constant. You guys are right and the temp sender wouldnt just _happen_ to go at the same time as my tinkering. This leaves 2 things:

1. the sealer plugged my radiator (or glued my thermostat shut)
2. I had "leaned" the mixture back to almost stoich from CRAZY rich and lowered the idle speed back to stock.

Could radiator flush work here? Should I get another batch and drive around on a double dose for an hour or is there no hope?

[GhettoPop]

Well, feel the upper radaitor hose when car is cold. It should be soft and cool. Run car to operating temp and feel upper hose. It should be hot to the touch and almost rock hard from the pressurized fluid. If the hose is hard then your thermostat is opening, if it stays soft, your t-stat is not opening. idle the car and look at the temo gauge, it should reach about 190 then drop when the t-stat is opened. if u sit there for 10-15 min, u should see it drop, then rise slowly again, then drop, etc.

i think u clogged your radiator. try and use a good quality flush. i would not overrun the car w/ the flush, u might do more damage then good. use max flush but follow the directions and flush out with water a couple times after to clean out the flush and gunk.

[crazypete]

=(

Well, I clogged my radiator. Either that, or my 4.56/x-pipe and the hot weather has finally caught up with me. My car is sitting in the driveway steaming away after coming back once again from a redzone temp bout on the highway. This is after a double dose of flush and a new thermostat. I felt the hose and it was HOT and pretty hard.

I guess the fact that the lower half of my fanshroud being missing plus the underdrive pullies finally caught up with me. I'll look on summit tonight for a nice 3-4 row radiator. This stuff never bothered the motor before....

One thing that bothered me GREATLY was how low the oil pressure was while it was running hot! It was barely below half at 3k rpms! At idle it was rock bottom low and rose very sleepily.

[GhettoPop]

Originally posted by crazypete
[B

I guess the fact that the lower half of my fanshroud being missing plus the underdrive pullies finally caught up with me. [/B]

change the shroud as well. or get an electric fan for a few extra horses. every little bit helps, plus u have a good excuse to go electric! good luck with your radiator

[crazypete]

Well, I went cheapo but I think I got a decent part. I ebayed it.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...tem=7904756870

Its from some company called TMD and it was $120, the same $$$ as a stock radiator and it should be as good at the very least. I'll ask the guy to send a shroud too.

Was my oil supposed to be ultra thin at that temperature? Thats what I was super worried about more than the heat.

[crazypete]

Come to think of it....this all started when I got my offroad bassani pipe installed. The only difference is no cats. Is it possible that the overheating described in general about piping smog pump air into the back of the heads is taking effect with the reduced backpressure? The headers seem instantly super hot when the car is started since the xpipe install. Since there was no checkvalve, I think exhaust simply used to gush out of the tube before and out the airpump but now there is positive flow of air into the heads. Am I getting anywhere with this line of thinking?

[crazypete]

Well, it was the radiator. I tossed in my TMD 3 core and the problem disappeared. I was tearing up and down the highway at 3000 rpms and it was right below the halfpoint on the temp guage.

My word of advice to the community: stay away from the black tar radiator sealer. It destroys radiators!

Have fun everyone!

Pete

[GhettoPop]

so it was what you originally thought all along, always go with your first instinct, its usually right. enjoy those high rpm's!