Overheating - 4.0l V6

[2Trux]

BTW It's the condenser in front of the radiator and the evaporator is behind the dash.
Are you using your A/C system while climbing the hill? This will add heat into the air going into the radiator and increase your chances of overheating.

 

[Mbrooks420]

A healthy system won’t overheat due to the AC, or any other normal circumstance.

 

[-Greg-]

BTW It's the condenser in front of the radiator and the evaporator is behind the dash.
Are you using your A/C system while climbing the hill? This will add heat into the air going into the radiator and increase your chances of overheating.

I have A/C always on.
Me and my friend were discussing some possibilities and he found a thread on this forum regarding overheating due to air in heater system. This Saturday we will try to find a way for pushing air out of that system too and check everything once again.

I was at the garage and we tested on CO2 once again - the fluid did change color, bot only slightly. According to the mechanics there, this cannot be the reason for overheating because if this slight color change is not because of the tester itself, the volume of CO2 is so low that it cannot cause overheating if the remaining system operates well. I will order the gaskets and bolt anyway (my assumption is that if there is any CO2 at all, it will not get better), but still will continue looking for other problems. I will put update as soon as I will have any

 

[974X4BLACKSPORT]

Tbilisi, Georgia, beautiful area, someday (dont know when) I want to plan a trip to Armenia to check out Karahunj (ancient stones).
Being a 14yo vehicle, it still might be a good idea to perform a flush of the radiator just to make sure there are no cooling tubes being restricted with debris, and no scale build up inside.

 

[allmyEXes]

What is this chemical to use for testing and where can one get it ?

 

[allmyEXes]

Here is some info on how to test for a blown head gasket
How to Test for a Blown Head Gasket in Under 15 Minutes

 

[Mbrooks420]

Block Tester BT 500 Combustion Leak Test Kit Made in USA | eBay

 

[-Greg-]

Block Tester BT 500 Combustion Leak Test Kit Made in USA | eBay

That is very similar to the tester that most of local garages have. You put the light blue fluid in that tank, take the cap off the radiator or expansion tank, press the testertto the opening est pump the air from the system. If the fluid becomes yellow, it is CO2 in there. In my case, it lost the color a bit, but only slightly, so there was some CO2, but very very few.

Tbilisi, Georgia, beautiful area, someday (dont know when) I want to plan a trip to Armenia to check out Karahunj (ancient stones).
Being a 14yo vehicle, it still might be a good idea to perform a flush of the radiator just to make sure there are no cooling tubes being restricted with debris, and no scale build up inside.

Wow, I have never heard of that place and it is really close from Tbilisi. Thank you for a great trip idea . I hope you would save time to wander in Georgia too

 

[-Greg-]

Solved!
We got really angry with the car and decided to check once more. Want to the mountains and when the coolant went up, stopped the car to see what's under the hood. Everything checked out, but fan was not tight enough. I took off the plastic cover over the radiator and what we discovered, was that the radiator inlet and outlet were very hot, bit the radiator centre was cold!

Went back and disassembled the radiator. Taking out a radiator, a simple job with nearly any car, occurred to be a nightmare! Who engineered this? After 2 hours, we finally took out the fourth bolt (left lower one), took the radiator off and after another hour, we disassembled the sides of the radiator. It was too clogged, but with the thin metal things in the windscreen wipers, we somehow cleaned each channel (another hour). In next hour we put everything together, filled with water and tested it. No overheating whatsoever!

The reason was a clogged radiator.

So, if someone is running this car with water (or somebody is willing to try this in future, please use distilled water instead of tak water...

 

[Mbrooks420]

There is no reason to ever run a car on water, other than you are too cheap to buy antifreeze.

 

[-Greg-]

1. ABS light comes up after hard braking. ABS works (tested) but cruise control doesn't. I am sure this must be an easy fix, so this is OK at this stage

OK, sorry to bother you guys again, but this seems to be more than a simple issue. I did the alignment, changed tires, changed brake fluid, tested all four sensors - still same problem. ABS light comes after hard acceleration, not under braking. ABS works even with this light on, but cruise does not.

Any suggestions?

 

[Mbrooks420]

Get the codes read.

 

[Mbrooks420]

I’m guessing if it happens on acceleration it’s a speed sensor. The code will point to which one.

 

[donalds]

Can't go just all Willy nilly throw parts at it codes?

Here is a similar problem I had with my abs
Solved P0500 c1102 pulsing breaks under 5mph

 

[Joe in NY]

Has this car had the brake switch replaced and safety fuse harness installed ?

 

[donalds]

Has this car had the brake switch replaced and safety fuse harness installed ?

Mine did I think it was a recall the harness just has two fuses what is it for?

 

[Joe in NY]

To prevent the car from burning to the ground.

 

[donalds]

To prevent the car from burning to the ground.

Well that's obvious I was wondering why

 

[Mbrooks420]

I believe an item that is under constant power can fail, and has an unprotected lead, which ends up as a wire burning.

 

[Joe in NY]

Ford undersized the wire gauge and oversized the fuse for the circuit. Trouble is that the large fuse is needed for a few other items on the same circuit. So in order to prevent the under sized wire from overheating and catching fire ford came up with the safety harness.