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Overheating on a 1991 Ford Explorer :(




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I hate to bring back alive this thread...
But it's starting to do it again, and it's not when i'm idling either....

My explorer overheats when it's going...
But at idle it cools down...
I'm gonna put more coolant in it and see if that helps it, but it's just SO much stress watching my heat gauge go above normal and then back down whenever i turn on the heater..

Also...Something i've noticed...
When i drive my truck and it starts to overheat, i get home and it's just above the L in Nomal.
I pop the hood and actually put my hand on the engine and it's not even warm or hot at all...
So could i have a faulty temperature gauge?
 






Well i figured out my overheating problem, My radiator stopped working at its fullest. And i found where my leak is in my system...
Out of the freakin exhaust pipe...
I might have coolant dripping into my air manifold, or my head gaskets are bad either way i'm more than likely changing all of it at once.


Just a reminder for EVERYONE....


Never let the truck get hot EVER....
 






Be aware of the heater core plugging up.... that was my first troll that popped up on mine. This was after the water pump was changed.

Anyway all of my cooling system has been addressed and I run a 180* t-stat, and a new temp sender for the gauge. Mine doesn't get over the O in NORMAL now.
 






Old thread I know but one point it was stated at first about a possible blown head gasket but as many of us know get a stock explorer hot and they do crack heads. As was found latter with water in the exhaust this could very likely be the case from many over heating times.

I was given a 94 with only 110,000 miles on it for this very reason. Both heads were cracked; one in two places the other in three. The owner who I knew had driven it hot instead of fixing a leaky radiator and had over heated it more then once! He also ran only tap water! Another no no use only distilled water if you must use only water. Again he destroyed the whole cooling system with rust and scale because of tap water alone and he still would get lazy and run it hot for a few miles just to get home and deal with it later. By doing this he also filled the crank case with water turning the oil there into cutting oil and thus also destroyed his crank and cam to were it was not worth rebuilding that motor at all! Well I got a part truck for free and I hope he and someone reading this learns/ learned a lesson from it.

FIX YOUR LEAKS OR OVER HEATING NOW NOT LATER!!!! AS IT MAY COST YOU A MOTOR IF YOU DO NOT!!!
 






It's been a while since i have been on this forum. But i am still not completely sure what the overheating is, as the explorer is just sitting in a field gathering dust. I am contemplating on buying a full gasket kit and just replacing all at once. However, i would want to buy new heads as well, because if they're cracked they're no good, and when is it not a good time to replace them when the engine is torn apart lol.
I'm not sure what i would be doing, but i am going to just change everything for grins/educational/ and price to sell would go up.



I plan on getting another explorer sooner than later though!

Thanks for the replies everyone. This has helped me!
 






I don't know if this will help, but with all 4 of my ford products over the years - they all required a back flush of the radiator. I'm not talking an internal flush, but an external flush. You have to remove the radiator and just take a hose and spray water the opposite way the air flows through the fins. You'll be amazed how much stuff will come out of there! You likely have other issues, but is is a good idea to do this while you have the other stuff torn apart. Trying this while it's installed just won't work, even with the fan and shroud removed.

I think there's something you can buy that helps clean better, but I've just used water.

Also if you have a small radiator leak or seep, check out this thread:
http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3095296#post3095296
 






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