ANOTHER UPDATE:
Well the rebuilt head was put on sometime in the last day or two. I was looking forward to having the Jeep back. But here is the thing ... while the car will idle just fine at normal indications (temp, oil pressure, etc.), while test driving the temperature goes up
above what was "normal" before.
It used to hang around just at 210 degrees or maybe a little more (according to the gauge). If it ever got much higher then that, the electric fan would kick in and cool it back down to about 210.
During the test drive, the temperature got just into the "red zone", which I believe is about 230 and I could hear the electric fan running. I pulled over and turned it off. I opened the hood and looked into the overflow bottle, which was bubbling and was pretty full.
So I started it up again and turned on the heater full blast (supplemental radiator
). I have used this trick in the past on other cars and it worked this time too (came back down to around 210).
I took it back to the shop where we let it cool down enough to take the radiator cap off. At that time, the radiator was full (coolant to the top) and the overflow bottle was down to a little below the "Full Cold" mark (about 1/3 of the bottle). The bottle was filled back to the mark, and the guess was that there may have been an air pocket in the system.
So I went out for another test drive and the temperature seemed to hang around 210, until I could actually accelerate a bit and "use" the motor (I was in slow traffic at first). It then started to climb back up toward the red zone. By the time I got back near the shop, it was just below the first part of the red.
Since my mechanic was short on help today, he couldn't really do much more investigation into it. We are wondering if the radiator is having trouble. So I am looking for some ideas.
Summary of what was changed:
- Rebuilt Cylinder Head & Gasket Set
- New Spark Plugs
- New Temperature Sending Unit (the one for the gauge)
- New Thermostat (192 degrees)
- New Coolant
- Oil & Filter
Thanks,