99' amigo coolant disappearing???

[travisthumb]

Hi,
I recently started having a problem with my amigo overheating. It started right after I had tromped on the gas to avoid a colission. After tromping I immediately smelled antifreeze. I took it to my mechanic and after testing suggested I replace the thermastat ($165- $15 parts, $140 labor) which I did.

The car ran fine for a few days and then began to overheat again. I took it back and found it was low on coolant. They ran a compression test for several hours to check for a bad head gasket and all the hoses. Everything checked OK. He filled it back up and asked me to keep an eye out for leaks.

Again after a few days the car begain to overheat. Again back to the mechanic and again low coolant. My garage floor is bone dry and they are completely baffled after running an over night compression test and checking for leaks.

His only suggestion and theory is that I have a bad cooling fan clutch that doesn't kick in when the engine gets hot. He thinks I'm losing the coolant through the reservoir hose from when the engine gets hot and blows the coolant out.

After testing it was found that the fan wasn't doing what its supposed to in kicking into high gear when needed. He wants to charge me $220 to replace the clutch but isn't 100% sure it will take care of the problem. This will be $400 spent on an overheating problem with no guarantee that it will be fixed.

Any ideas or healpful advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading.

[amigo-2k]

You might want to post this in the rodeo forum too.

I'm still thinking it is a head problem. Any water in the oil?

Maybe you can rig something on the overflow to catch it if it is actually overflowing.