92 lumina 3.1 over heating problems

The dummy light for the temp goes on but only very dimly. I just changed the water pump due to a bit of coolant leaking and when the light still stayed on I changed the thermostat. After changing the thermostat. the light went completly on, not just dim. The heat stoped working for a couple min. till i gave the car some gas. After I did this the temp light went off completly and heat went on. My question is, the temp. light still dimily goes on from time to time. Is this a electical problem or is there something else wrong with my car? Thanks in advance

did you burp the system if there is air in the system it will do things like you are describing

I really dont know a whole lot about cars, what is burping the system? I let the car run a while with the radator cap off and i filled it up as it level lowered. Is there more to this process im missing?

Burping the system is quite easy. When you change the parts, you ALWAYS introduce air into the system. All you have to do is find the thermostat housing, there should be a little purge valve on the top of it, it looks like a twistable peg, start the COOL car and let it warm up to operating temperature with this valve twisted open, just enough that you hear a slight hissing sound. A good way is to place a finger in front of the valve opening to make the hissing sound a little louder. Keep an eye on your dash to watch the light (TEMP). When the light comes on turn the car off and allow some time to cool, then go at it again. Eventually you will see the valve bubble up, once there is a constant stream of coolant coming from the valve, you have purged the air. Twist the valve shut and you should be ok. If this doesn't help the problem then its something else =P Remember dont let the car overheat too much.

-- Bill

My friends dad is a mechanic and he told me to just take off the raditor cap and run the car, adding more coolant as the air bubbles came out. Ive done this 3 times, no more bubbles coming out yet the car still "over heats". So when the dummy light came on for overheating the engine should be to hot to touch right? And the two hoses come and going from the raditor should be really hot too right? Well both of these our not very hot at all. My point is could this be a problem with the overheating sensor. Could this thing be giving me a bad reading and telling me the car is overheating when its really not?



Thanks in advance

I am not sure on the 3.1, but on the 3.4 there are 2 bleeders on the coolant lines (1 on the upper rad. hose the other on the heater pipe very near the brake master cyl. You want to look for the highest heater hoses or coolant lines under the hood and the should be a small hex head screw in it. Turn them open a turn or two, start the car, let the car warm up to operating temp so that the thermostat is open(with the rad cap on) you should then see coolant leaking out around those screw(s),back them out further if necc. snug the screws when coolant flows past them. shut the car off and make sure you have extra coolant in the reseviour. when the engine cools off it will suck back in the coolant it needs to fill the system. All this assumes that you have filled the coolant as full as you could before putting the rad. cap on and you have no leaks or weak spots in the coolant system sucking air. Just so you know in a lot of newer cars the radiator filler cap is lower than the highest coolant line or passage in the motor. That is the reason for Burping. If you find that you still have a problem over heating try this process again.
There are a lot of things that could be causing it, but without more info it would be hard to speculate

If the temperature gauge stays in the normal range, I wouldnt worry about it too much. GM W bodys (lumina, grand prix, cutlass supreme) were known for a defect in the instrument cluster circutry. If your gauge is going haywire, I would suspect the coolant temperature sensor may be bad. Best of luck

ok i just got done burping the system for try number one. There was quite a bit of air in there. But with my rotten luck when i was screwing the bolt backinto the top of the thermostat house i broke the head off! Its in all the way but there is no way to get it out. What im i to do???

leave it or replace the housing your choice just get one from a junkyard

The antilock brake light stays on, im beginning to wonder if this is a electrical problem and not a coolant problem.

mine uae to do the same it says on unplug the wheel seners and clean them with electrical cleaner that helped mine out on all four tires