V8 Coolant Issue / Overheating / Clog

[dkyleb]

So, something odd happened today. I pulled off my thermostat housing to fix a leak. Added new gasket, let sit, good to go. I lost some coolant in the process, and added distilled water as a replacement, as I did not have the pink Toyota stuff handy.

Warmed up the truck with the heat on to get rid of air, heard some liquid swishing, figured I was good to go. Did some driving around, drove an hour on the highway with no problems...

However, leaving a friends house and headed back to mine, the wife turns the heat to max (I guess it wasn't on max when I burped the system...) and about 10 minutes later, I start noticing smoke coming from the truck. Pull over, realize it's steam and pop the hood. The coolant hose on the right side coming off the motor had popped off!

I slipped it back on, and started limping home. Thats when it started to over heat. Almost got up to the red before I pulled over again. This time that coolant hose was hard, and full of steam. I purged the steam, limped it home the rest of the way.

I'm going to go try and purge the system of air properly right now. But I'm suspecting there might be a clog somewhere. Any ideas?

 

[Brian3676]

Sounds like you just need to bleed it real good. By the way, you want heat temp setting on max heat, but the fan off or as low as you can. If you have the fan on max it's acting as a radiator basically and so the t stat will not open as far to let the system property burp.

 

[dkyleb]

Got it figured.

For anyone that comes across this thread, here's what I did:

1. With the vehicle off and cold, opened radiator cap, filled radiator.

2. Started vehicle with heat set to max and fan on lowest speed.

3. Filled the radiator up a couple times, had it revved up to 2000rpm.

4. Left the cap off for a while, gave the hose a few squeezes.

5. Topped off the rad one last time, topped off the overflow. Put cap back on, went for a drive.

No more overheating and heat works again.