possible thermostat problem?? help

I have a 92' voyager with a 3.3 v6 and have been having strange problems with it lately. When i start the car all is pretty good, once i get going and the motor has time to warm up, if i let it idle it wont register a temp....once i accelerate, after giving ample time for warm up, it jumps up to norm temp...and i mean literally jumps.

Now, when I'm driving i will turn on the heat. it stays cold if at idle(i.e. at a redlight, or in park) but once im accelerating it heats up. ok, now that im up to speed the heat will go off again and blow cold air if i let off the gas.

my thought is that i have a sticky thermostat, but alas, im not a mechanic so i can only guess.

btw, i was driving to work this morning and the temp guage actually started to climb a lil bit past the norm operating temp while stuck in traffic but once i got going it started to go down again...still with the same problem with the heat/no heat deal.

thanks in advance to any brave enough to tackle this thread...;-)

Could it be you have an air bubble in your coolant line? My Dodge Shadow did this very thing even after changing the thermostat. I eventually got it running ok by purging the air out of the system.

good luck,

MN Walleye

If the coolant level is low, this could cause this problem.

Could it be you have an air bubble in your coolant line? My Dodge Shadow did this very thing even after changing the thermostat. I eventually got it running ok by purging the air out of the system.

good luck,

MN Walleye

I am having a similar problem. I just replace my upper and lower radiator hoses. I refill the radiator with the coolant I had just drained. The temperature gauge is registering normal, but I cannot get any heat inside the vehicle. How do you purge the air from the radiator system? Thanks for your help.

Not an expert on this but I started with a cold engine, took off the radiator cap and started the engine and ran it up to tempenture and just kept squeezing the upper radiator hose. System kept burping the air out, After several minutes of doing this, I added a bit of coolant back in and put radiator cap back on and it seems to work just fine now. Of course with any coolant system be careful not to burn yourself. I've heard of some people drilling a very very small hole in the theromastat to prevent the build up of air bubbles but then the coolant circulates too soon and you never reach correct engine running tempenture. What I mean is it'll still work but it'll generally run to about the 1/4 mark on the temp gauge where normally the needle goes about 1/2 way.

good luck!

best thing about small cars, when their easier to push home.

MNWalleye

Not an expert on this but I started with a cold engine, took off the radiator cap and started the engine and ran it up to tempenture and just kept squeezing the upper radiator hose. System kept burping the air out, After several minutes of doing this, I added a bit of coolant back in and put radiator cap back on and it seems to work just fine now. Of course with any coolant system be careful not to burn yourself. I've heard of some people drilling a very very small hole in the theromastat to prevent the build up of air bubbles but then the coolant circulates too soon and you never reach correct engine running tempenture. What I mean is it'll still work but it'll generally run to about the 1/4 mark on the temp gauge where normally the needle goes about 1/2 way.

good luck!

best thing about small cars, when their easier to push home.

MNWalleye

I did run it for a while with the cap off and I squeezed the hoses a few times. I did this after letting it sit over night. It is working fine now. Thanks for your reply.