94 cutlass supreme overheating

hey everybody. i have a 94 olds cutlass supreme 3.1 that had a leaking coolant system. so i grabbed some stop leak and put that in the system and now it seems to be running warmer than before. now, i dont know if this stuff i put in caused this problem, or it its something else, but i need to get it fixed. the car will run fine if you just start it and let it idle in park, but once you start driving the temp starts to rise. it doesnt go into the "danger zone" but it does get close, especially when sitting at a red light in drive with foot on the brake. also, i noticed that when i take off from a red light the temp goes down, but once im cruising at a constant speed it goes back up. my father and i tried replacing the thermostat, which was a pain. after about 90 minutes of trying to get the bolts out, they finally came. then we couldnt get the housing off, it looks like part of the exhaust manifold might have to come off in order to get the housing off. so after all was said and done, we never did end up changing the thermostat. please let me know if anybody knows whats going on. thanks!

hey everybody. i have a 94 olds cutlass supreme 3.1 that had a leaking coolant system. so i grabbed some stop leak and put that in the system and now it seems to be running warmer than before. now, i dont know if this stuff i put in caused this problem, or it its something else, but i need to get it fixed. the car will run fine if you just start it and let it idle in park, but once you start driving the temp starts to rise. it doesnt go into the "danger zone" but it does get close, especially when sitting at a red light in drive with foot on the brake. also, i noticed that when i take off from a red light the temp goes down, but once im cruising at a constant speed it goes back up. my father and i tried replacing the thermostat, which was a pain. after about 90 minutes of trying to get the bolts out, they finally came. then we couldnt get the housing off, it looks like part of the exhaust manifold might have to come off in order to get the housing off. so after all was said and done, we never did end up changing the thermostat. please let me know if anybody knows whats going on. thanks!

heh... no offense but i definately would not recommend using any of those "stop leak" additives that say that they will help stop coolant leaks or whatever, because of some past personal experience plus some experiences that my parents have had with that stuff, it usually ends up messing more stuff up later on than it helps anything. Its sort of like a small band-aid... temporary fix for a problem that wont go away on its own. its possible that when you added that stuff that it might have gummed up a little bit in the smaller passage ways in the cooling system, which might mean that it could have even started to clog up a little bit around/inside part of the thermostat itself, but i cant say for sure if thats what really happened or not, obviously. Generally if your coolant level is full, but yet your temp is hotter than it is sposed to be, then usually its because the hot coolant thats inside your block/head, etc is not getting circulated out of there. it very well might be that the coolant isnt able to get thru the thermostat very quickly but just enough so that it can allow more cold coolant into the engine to keep it from actually overheating badly. as much as a pain in the butt that it probably is to replace the thermostat, i would have to say that its a pretty good place to start. if that doesnt fix it then you probably have some sort of clog somewhere else in the cooling system thats preventing coolant from properly flowing thru. hope this helps ya.

mike

I have that same problem...My head gasket is blown...I don't plan on fixing it because it can cost up to $2000...I'm getting a new car anyway.

For temporary fixing just add water/coolant to your overflow before you go anywhere and make sure the car is cooled before doing that. (I learned that part the hard way) I also suggest not taking long trips either...

ok, first of all, a head gasket fix is not 2000 bucks, maybe if u go to gm, MAYBE, my car was running hot, it was the radiator, i tried to get it fixed but it had no fix, so i got a new radiator from a 4.0 liter truck engine, it has the same inlets not to mention it was twice as thick, the car is now running at a little over 175 degrees, with the a/c on and outside temperature of 95 degrees, chek the radiator, and try to get a bigger one, the radiators in cutlass are very small. Dont use stop leak again, i was there also and i ended up flushing the system and a bunch of stuck stop leak was making it worse.