Some radiator issues

[RalliedxLegacy]

ok, i just bought my first car (1995 Subaru Legacy LSi) and it had a radiator leak so my first thing was to get a new radiator so i parked my car in my dads driveway and took out the old one......about 1 month later i finally find a radiator and i put it in my car with all new hoses and clamps from advanced auto. Me and a friend with some help from my dad put it in and filld it up with about 5-6 L of coolant. and it didnt go down to quickly (we had to start the car in order for the coolant to go down so we can continue to fill it up). When we started it up there was a ticking sound that wasnt there before and then a couple minutes later it starts to smoke. so we shut it off to let it cool down and we drove it about a mile to go fill it up with gas. and when we get down there we pop the hood and its smoking again and it looks like its smoking from the passanger side exhaust heat shield (header) so we drive it home and look at it. and my dad wipes off some grease (oil,sludge, whatever) and the smoking stops but u can kinda still smell it. then i drive my friend home and ther car is running perfectly fine until when im pulling out of his driveway the temp gauge reads "H" (overheating) so we get it home and theres smoke coming out the grill and theres collant coming out from underneath the car. when my dad goes under to look he told me that the overflow bottle isnt sitting right so i open the cap and its full of coolant (all the way to the top) and it was spilling out of little hole thats on the overflow bottle. im just wondering if anybody knows whats wrong or what happened. if its from sitting there for a month without starting, or from the coolant expanding, or we put to much coolant in, or the temp gauge was sticking. BTW: the ticking is gone after driving it around. any sort of help will be grately apreciated - Justin

[chuckthefuk]

You guys didn't bleed the coolant system. When air passes through your coolant system it makes your sensor spike to top..

It takes a long time on these engines..

..

Start over.

Open the rad cap
Start the car
let the air bubbles surface !!!!!!!!
let the over flow bottle fill its not a big deal.
Rev your car a bit and more bubbles will come out.


Keep in mind your not cycling coolant unless your Thermostat is opening and allowing the water-pump to flow coolant.

You can test to see if your thermostat is working properly touch both of your rad hoses (Left -> Right) if one of them is cold then your not flowing coolant and your thermostat has not opened yet. When your engine gets to its proper temp the thermostat should open and the hose should be hot. And more air bubbles should surface.

-Chuck

[harrymaneuvers]

When I did my timing belt a few weeks ago... I bought a new thermostat from Kragen Auto parts. I took my original factory thermostat out and put the new one in... took it for a ride and after about 5 minutes... the temps started to creep over the halfway mark (halfway mark being the normal operating temp) toward the H. I got back to my house before it got over 3/4 of the way to the H.

I took out the new thermostat (fully open and hot as hell), refilled and drove around without a thermostat in... No overheating...

Then I put the new thermostat back in and without driving around... started to rev the engine to about 2k rpm... it started to creep up to the H again so I shut it off and took out the thermostat again (fully open and hot just like last time)

I compared the two thermostats side by side and noticed that besides the OEM unit being way more sturdy and heavy duty... there was only two support beams splitting the opening in the OEM one, and three beams in the new one (two large openings vs three smaller ones).

The only thing I could think is that the new one didnt have as big of an opening and couldnt let enough coolant through.

I ended up putting my 215k mile OEM thermostat back in and have had 0 problems since.

This picture isnt the exact one that I took but it is nearly identical... you can see the larger OEM thermostat vs the smaller more compact aftermarket one... And yes... I took back the thermostat to make sure it was the correct one... it was.

https://sl-i.net/FORUM/images/imported/2010/08/DSC00412JPG-1.jpg

[chuckthefuk]

hmmm that looks odd.
-Chuck

[harrymaneuvers]

Tell me about it...

I even went to autozone about a week later to see what theirs looked like and it was nearly identical to the one I returned to Kragen.

Shorter, not as heavy, and a 3 spline opening?!?!?!?!

[chuckthefuk]

Just go buy an OEM one and have some peace of mind. I am all for aftermarket cheapness but why bother when it gives you such a headache.
-Chuck

[RalliedxLegacy]

hey thxs guys for ur help, cause i just wanna get my car back on the rode cause i drove the other day and i loved it!! it has 200,096 and it handles like it has 65 miles on it. hahaha :D

[Navi271]

Wow, working on my car with friends yesterday. We got interrupted by rain so we didn't get to do the thermostat because we were rushed to get the engine back in. Glad I kept the OEM thermostat after reading this!

We also had to bleed it twice because the first time we didn't get ALL the air out! My temp gauge was past H at one point lol. I also had smoke on my car, but it was just the spilled coolant and other crap burning off the hot engine/radiator.

[RalliedxLegacy]

Wow, working on my car with friends yesterday. We got interrupted by rain so we didn't get to do the thermostat because we were rushed to get the engine back in. Glad I kept the OEM thermostat after reading this!

We also had to bleed it twice because the first time we didn't get ALL the air out! My temp gauge was past H at one point lol. I also had smoke on my car, but it was just the spilled coolant and other crap burning off the hot engine/radiator.
thats exactly what happened to mine. when i pulled in to my driveway my temp gauge was kinda "off the charts" haha. and there was smoke coming out my grill from the coolant spilling on the engine. haha