Cooling System Problems

I've done a bit of research and found similar problems to this, but my first fix attempt went unseccessful.

I have a 96 Taurus LX, DOHC. Yesterday, I heard a terrible sound coming from inside my engine compartment. Opned it up to find antifreeze boiling in the overflow canister. Today, I looked a bit into it. The temp gauge spikes to hot very very quickly after driving it from cold for about 4 minutes (I live in Michigan, temperatures are about 20 degrees F right now). I'm also getting no heat inside the car.

I read some other posts about similar problems and figured it was the thermostat. I just came inside from replacing it, and no luck. Same exact problem.

Any help would be much apprciated, and fast also. I need to have this fixed by tommorrow night, but don't want to take it to a shop.

Thanks in advance,
Nick

Sounds like it is water pump related to me.

Normally, the fluid temp gets high and the thermostat should open up and allow the fluid to flow (be pumped) into the radiator to cool down and stay below the pressure of the overflow tank cap pressure.

Since you get the flow into the tank I assume the thermostat is OK. As a result of the very high fluid temp (per your temp guage), the pressure is too high for the tank cap which is why you get the boiling in the tank. With reduced or obstructed flow you would get little or no cooling from the radiator nor heat in the passenger compartment.