yet another f body overheats

ok i bought the car on or about the 20th of april this year. its a 1994 camaro (regular camaro) automatic 3.4 litre engine. i bought the car from a private owner that purchased it from an auction after the car had been declared a total loss. the fixed it up and it looks and drives GREAT and for what i paid for it, i basically stole the damn car. the only problem i have is it overheating (obviously).

i bought the car (quite far from my house about an hour and a half drive) drove it home and it started over heating. knew there was a small water pump leak so i went to autozone and bought a water pump went to a friends house and we (me, my boyfriend (yes im female) and our friend) started tearing things out and got to the power steering pump pully. well crap i dont have anything to take this off with. and the hoses we had taken off had dumped out the nastiest, dirtiest radiator water i have ever seen and there was red rusty/mud water sprayed all over the underside of the hood/engine/pulleys. so with plain water we flushed the radiator untill it ran seemingly clean. connected the hoses back and me, being only slightly less dirty than everyone else i got in the car hauled ass down the road pushing the car harder than we had since we bought it. back country roads for 10 miles at an average of 60 mph with as high as 85. got back to the house the car never overheated and the water in it was holding good no leaks O.o

went to autozone and bought a radiator flush kit and some prestone superflush and went to another friends house (pattern here is we dont have a hose outlett at the house because we dont pay for water) used the super flush and flushed the radiator really good and it never seemed to get over the 1/4 mark on the temp gauge. started to see more leekage from the pump when the other day there was none and there was no play in it, this leakage was comming from the bottom weep hole. drove the car home after it was seeming to hold fluid and the antifreeze was EVERYWHERE just like the time before with the nasty mud/rust water (yes there really was mud in there).and it was starting to overheat again for the first time in 2 days.

so the next day we tried to put more water back in the car and as soon as we put it in it would run out and you could hear it and see it. the car wouldn't hold any fluid because it was leeaking so badly from the weep hole. the car was undriveable so we went to autozone and bought a pulley puller and replaced the waterpump ourselves seals on it are good no leakage whatsoever but it still over heats.

went to a mechanic that works out of a small shop, not a real shop but he says he is a certified mechanic and he seems pretty knowledgeable (heard of him from the first friend) he said the radiator fan wasn't comming on when it should and therefore we had a bad coolant temp sensor and should replace the thermostat as well. so back to auto zone we go and get the coolant temp sensor and a thermostat and back to the mechanic and have him replace those for us he flushes the radiator one more time and gets the little tiny bit of crap out of it and flushes the resevour.

well we leave and go on our merry way and call another friend and finally get in touch with him (master mechanic at a dealership and used to work exclusivly on camaros and corvettes at a performance shop) and go have him just give it a quick over look (free of charge)and the car hadn't been overheating but we hadn't been driving it much/far/or during traffic only close to at night. but it started overheating on the way over to his house (yesterday). he says that we should replace the temp gague sending unit because the car may not be overheating because the fan comes on, but usually when the gague reads about 250 degrees. he checks the relays and they are fine checks the fuses they are fine and all are seated nice and tight and clears whats left of the air from the lines/hoses/engine. he checked the pressure in the radiator and its fine no leaks cracks it holds the pressure it should. he checked the radiator cap and it wasn't holding the pressure it should be.

so again we leave on our way and get a new radiator cap and temp gague sending unit. we have put them both on and the car still overheats. we took off the panel that covers the radiator and checked for debris/trash and found nothing to block the airflow. all parts we used were new not rebuilt. what more can i do? being that im a woman and by default dont wrk on cars as much as most guys i dont know everything and my boyfriend isn't a mechanic and he has no clue what further we can do at this point either. we had a 1993 camaro regular camaro v6 manual transmission before but the number 2 piston shattered and put a hole in the block so we had to sell it over a year ago and have wanted to buy another one ever since that car never had an overheating problem. any help would be appreciated because i at this point have NFI :confused:

i know this is long but most people complain that details and or enough details aren't provided. so there you have it my problem in FULL DETAIL and what i have done to try and fix this.

RydaniA

I dont have your VIN but if this applies giver it a shot but if you re still getting the nasty "mud" search the Blazer forum for the flush info there.

TEMPERATURE GAUGE READS TOO HIGH (INSTALL RESISTOR) #43-81-07 - (03/29/1994)
SUBJECT: TEMPERATURE GAUGE READS TOO HIGH (INSTALL RESISTOR)

MODELS: 1993-94 CHEVROLET CAMARO - PRIOR TO VIN R2173167 1993-94 PONTIAC FIREBIRD - PRIOR TO VIN R2229373

CONDITION:

THE CUSTOMER MAY COMMENT THAT THE TEMPERATURE GAUGE READS TOO HIGH, THAT THE NEEDLE IS IN THE RED ZONE, OR THAT THE ENGINE IS OVERHEATING.

CAUSE:

THE CALIBRATION OF THE TEMPERATURE GAUGE IN THE CLUSTER IS INCORRECT. THE CLUSTERS WERE CORRECTED IN PRODUCTION AFTER VIN R2173167 (CHEVROLET) AND R2229373 (PONTIAC).

CORRECTION:

1. VERIFY THAT THE CONDITION EXISTS BY COMPARING THE CLUSTER GAUGE READING WITH THE READING FROM THE ECM TEMPERATURE SENSOR, USING THE TECH 1. THE 3/4 MARK ON THE GAUGE IS ABOUT 235 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT (113 DEGREES CELSIUS).

2. DISCONNECT THE TEMPERATURE GAUGE SENSOR CONNECTOR. THE SENSOR IS SHOWN IN THE 1994 SERVICE MANUAL, PAGE 8A-201-27, FIGURE 52 (V-6), AND PAGE 8A-201-16, FIGURE 29 (V-8).

CUT THE DARK GREEN WIRE, AND SPLICE IN A 10 OHM, 1/2 WATT RESISTOR. SOLDER THE CONNECTIONS, AND PROTECT WITH SHRINK WRAP TO INSURE THAT THE CONNECTION IS WATERPROOF. THE RESISTOR CAN BE OBTAINED FROM A LOCAL ELECTRONICS SUPPLY STORE. ONE SUCH SOURCE IS RADIO SHACK, P/N 271-001 OR EQUIVALENT.

RECONNECT THE TEMPERATURE GAUGE SENSOR CONNECTOR.

Not sure about all this. But you give alot of info about what is going on with the car. That is good.

Sounds like the rust you are talking about. Someone put some stop leak in there. You have replace alot of the other stuff.

Are you sure its rust and mud ? It could be oil. Be sure to check both oil and water. and make sure that the oil level does go up or down. If the water goes down alot. and the oil level goes up alot. not good.

What happen when you first flushed the radiator and the rusty water came out. And then did it again the second time. The first time you flushed it. Your thermostat was closed. Trapping water in in the block of the motor. When you start it up and drove it awhile. The thermostat opened and the dirty water that was trapped in the motor released into the clean you just put in it. To do a good flush ! you need to flush the radiator and start the engine and run it till the thermostat opens . Then repeat it 1 or 2 times. every time the motor cools off. It will close the thermostat trapping water in the block. You need to make sure to get that trapped water out of there .
When you refull the radiator with fluid. Start the motor and let it run for awhile with the radiator cap off. When you see the water level drop. That means the thermostat opened. Full it up with the motor still running and you should beable to see the fluid moving thru the radiator when filling. If you dont see the radiator fluid moving with a good flow. Then its stopped up somewhere.

I myself would pull the radiator and take it to the shop and have it rotted out. If you say when draining it . It looked like muddy water. I'm sure you couldnt be getting good water flow though it.

When you fill up the radiator and see that it is over heating ! and it gets in the red. Open the hood and see if is backing up in the overflow. If the car is really over heating. It will start boiling the water back in the overflow.

Check the radiator hoses. There not that much, replace them when reinstalling the radiator after havin it rotted.

If this doent help. e-mail me. I'll try to help more. I down check this forum often.

well damn im not 100% sure on what we have done since i posted this because its late and im tired but the same crap is going on only now its worse..... ok as for flushing the radiator and having water trapped down inside the block when the thermostat shut that may have happened on the first water flush and the first chemical flush we did our selves but when we took it to the mechanic and he flushed it, he took the thermostat OUT and flushed the water straight down the block and out of the hoses but anyway it was still overheating and no i have not checked my vin numbers to see if mine perhaps falls into that catagory but the gague had pegged so many times it fried the prim board and the gague said 260 no matter what and when i bought the amp gague the amp gauge was perm pegged too so i bought a used instrument panel so i have nfi what the vin number of the car it came off of was.

but as of now we have replaced the radiator with a brand new one, the fan will not come on when the coolant temp sensor is plugged in, only when the sensor is unplugged and then it runs all the time. we are looking into the wiring skematics and possibly a screwed up wire could be the answer to that problem possibly easy to fix. the main problem i have now is that a. the car is still running warmer than i would like even with a new radiator put in because yes the old one was plugged up and i didn't feel like wasting my time to have it rodded out and acid bathed because its got plastic ends and it would never seal right so then the radiator would be useless so i just went ahead and repalced it to save myself time and headache. but the car is still warmer than what i want.

well the last chemical flush we did (the day we replaced the radiator) was to clean it out for the new radiator but we did ONE more prior to that in hopes of saving the radiator. well in that LAST chem flush we now have a larger problem and possibly why the car isn't cooling as well. to answer your question about the water lvl going down and the oil lvl going up no that did not happen there was no water in the oil i dont have a cracked head. but now i do have a headgasket problem because i have coolant blowing out of my exhaust pipe. we are now thinking (me my boyfriend and my mechanic) that they had put stopleak in the car becuase they knew there was a head gasket problem and through all the flushes and the car running a bit warm we flushed it all out because right after we replaced the radiator was when this was first noticed and then when going to test drive the car to see if it would cool just a bit more going down the highway the car had NO power, it was tacking at 3500 rpm before it would start to take off, being its an automatic no we weren't riding the clutch. and when the car was at a stop it wouldn't east forward when you took your foot off the brake, not a good sign. so thats what im looking at now, FUN FUN :rolleyes:

Looks like you have a headgasket problem. Fixing it may solve your problem of overheating. However I would suggest you hook up a scanner after the heads are done and check your vehicle temperature. Your radiator fan should come on at 108C (dont know what it is in F). In this case it looks like you may have a bad relay and/or a computor. There is a test for this but do you have access to a scanner? If you know someone who has one he maybe able to check it for you. With all the problems you are having, looks like your convertor or something is breaking up and blocking your exhaust hence lack of power. Good Luck to you.

if you want a quick fix, just go to radio shack and get a 2 dollar switch and some wire and wire in a switch to turn on the fan manually