rev up your engine's, okay here we go you got an overheating car in this case
it's a PT Cruiser, there are literally dozens of things that can make a car
overheat so where do you start, well you start with the most obvious things you
can find, and what's in it okay it's got Bo 300 multiple misfires
it's got PR 128 coolant thermostat below regulating temperature, and again the
misfires and no definition found that fascinating, but when we look over here
that's for the TCM that's for the transmission control module so that
probably won't have anything with the engine overheating, we'll ignore that for
the time being, so the codes hey, the engine's misfiring
but is the engine misfiring because the engines overheating, or is something
making the edge and misfiring that causes the engine to overheat
well that wasn't all that much help so let's check the coolant level next, well
look inside here and lo and behold you can't even see the coolant so it's low
on coolant, now there's a whole bunch of reasons you could be low on coolant
leaking radiator cap, leak in the system, overeating engine but since this engines
cold here's a quick test, what you can do is start the engine up cold with a
cap off, then put your hand over the radiator cap hole, now I don't feel
any pressure coming out, so the ehad gasket isn't completely blown, if my
hand would of had a lot of pressure coming out on an ice cold engine when
you started it where you remove the radiator cap from, that would mean the head
gasket is so far gone it's just blowing smoke up through there and you know the
engine would need work, but in this case that's not happening so, for the time
being we're just gonna put some water in the system to check for leaks, now while
we're doing this we're gonna turn on the a/c full blast to see if the cooling fan
works then, here we go I can feel the cooling fan blowing really
strong, so we know the cooling fan works fine with the
AC on, but sometimes the cooling fan does not
work right when the AC is off, their two separate systems, because when you turn
the AC on it's supposed to turn the cooling fan on the radiator on to suck
air through the radiator and the AC condenser that's in front of the
radiator so the AC blow cold, but when you're driving a car with the AC
off it's a different system and that works that when the sensor for that system
sees the temperature gets to a certain amount of degrees, it'll turn the cooling
fans on and then when it cools down they go off, and then when it gets hotter
again it'll go on, so I'm going to turn the AC off now and let it idle and see
if the fans come on and off, this might take a little while but hey that's the
life of figuring out why your car is overheating, so we'll turn the AC off and
now we'll go to the fan here, stick our hand behind it and we don't feel it
it's not moving, so now we have to wait for the engine to warm up, now here's the
temperature gauge once it starts to warm up we got a watch to see that those fans
come on, it's a very common problem with these things that the original system
doesn't turn the fans on, now while we're waiting for it to warm up here's a tip,
let's say your car starting to overheat especially in traffic and if you turn
the AC on and it stops overheating and the temperature goes back down,
hey just drive around with the AC on at least for the interim you're not hurting
anything, this may or may not be the problem we don't know, we gotta wait
until the car warms up to see if that cooling fan comes on by itself with the
AC off, now while we're waiting this is the time that you need to know
everything about the car possible, in this case I asked the customer he said
the car was wrecked in the front some body work done and some radiator
work done, it could easily be they messed with the sensors that turn the cooling
fan on it could be the whole problem, but we gotta wait until we see whether it comes
on or not, because if it comes on well that's not the problem, well
the temperature gauge is starting to get a little
higher so let's go under the hood and see what's happening with the fan, I hear
something and lo and behold it's on, so that system is working, the fans coming
on, well now what are we gonna do now I gotta figure out why is it overheating,
well I just figured one thing out the fan just kicked in full blast you can
hear them and when I put my hand behind the radiator fan it's blowing like mad
but it's cool air, that should be hot air so for some reason the radiator isn't
getting enough hot water in it, and just and yes now it's starting to overheat to get
it into the hot zone so we'll turn it off, so I'm gonna
get this little temperature tester out and it was 19 bucks or so we're gonna try to
find where there's a restriction to keep the water from getting into the radiator
so it'll dissipate the heat with a fan, we'll take a few temperature readings
the top is 199 but the bottom here is only 108, so the water not coming
from the top to the bottom, and guess what the thermostat is in here, so we're
just gonna change the thermostat let's pray it's that cheap of a fix, so we'll
move some stuff out of the way and unbolt the thermostat, and there's a
stupid thing, this is supposed to be closed when it's cold
and open when it's hot, you saw it getting hot it didn't open so we're
gonna replace the thermostat, now when you put the new thermostat in you got to
make sure that the knotch goes the right way, there's a notch right here fits
right in, as you can see right here it fits right in the notch it's nice and
tight and it won't fall out when you put it back in, then you tighten the housing
back on, and we'll fill it full of coolant, put the cap back on
nice and tight, then start it up and see what father time he has to say about it
ehating after it warms up remember there's no shortcuts when it
comes to time, you gotta let it run till it warms up, then see if the fan comes
on, if it does odds are it's fixed, you still need to road
test it for half an hour so you see how it does on the highway, but it was overheating
just idling before and if it stops now that should be it, and here we go
I hear the fans coming on, and when I stick my hands in, the air is blowing and
this time it's warm air, it's not cool air, it means it's actually circulating,
and as we can see on a temperature gauge look it's staying pretty much around the
middle it's not going up to the H like it was before, so if you never want
to miss another one of my new car repair videos, remember to ring that Bell!