One, two, three, four!
Rev up your engines!
[ENGINE REVVING]
It's time for scottykilmer.com.
If your car is over-heating then today's
your lucky day because I'm going to show you how
to fix a car that overheats.
Now many things can cause a car to overheat,
so start with the basics-- check the radiator fluid.
When it's cold, take the radiator cap, look inside.
In this case, it's bone dry.
So the next thing to do is to pressure test
the system to check for leaks.
Here's this pressure leak testing kit I've had for years.
And don't worry if you want to do it yourself,
hey, you can buy these things used for $30.
And some of the new ones only cost about $70.
Just hook it up to the radiator, then pump up the pressure.
And in this case, you can see it's leaking
right out of the radiator.
The radiator is just full of holes.
Now, this case is pretty easy.
There was a hole in the radiator.
But it was more complex, you watch the pressure on the gauge
and see if it starts to move down.
Pump it up to 16 lbs. pressure or so, and watch the gauge.
And if it starts dropping like this, you know there's a leak
and you have to find where the squirt is coming from.
But let's say you pressure tested it
and there weren't any leaks at all.
What do you do next?
Well realize that the radiator caps are supposed
to hold pressure in, so if they're worn and rusty
like this one, you might just need a new radiator cap.
Now there are machines that test radiator caps,
but, hey, they're so cheap, just go buy another one
and stick it on.
Now if that doesn't fix it, the next thing to check
is the cooling fans.
So start the car up and then turn the AC onto full blast.
And then check the cooling fans to see
if they're working back there.
But in this case, you can see the left fan
and the right fan is turning.
If the fans aren't working, there
won't be enough air sucked through the radiator
and it will overheat.
And when they don't work, check the fan motors--
they often burn up.
To check to see if the motors is out,
just get a little jumper wire and stick
one end on the positive cable of the battery
and stick the other end on the red cable that feeds the motor.
If the fan doesn't start spinning,
you'll know the motor is burned out.
But let's say the fans are working fine.
Well, then you might have a bad thermostat.
These thermostats close so the engine warms up.
And when it gets hot they're supposed to open up.
And sometimes they stick.
Most thermostats are pretty easy to get to.
On this Toyota you just follow the bottom radiator hose,
and there's the thermostat housing back here.
It just has a bolt on the top and a bolt on the bottom.
You pull it out and replace the thermostat.
And then you better hope a new thermostat
fixes your overheating problem, because if it doesn't, then
you have one of two rather expensive problems.
Either the radiator itself is just so
old it can't dissipate heat anymore,
or the head gasket on the engine is starting to blow.
Now these modern radiators-- they're
made of plastic and aluminum, often
corrode inside, and don't dissipate heat anymore.
They don't leak and they look perfectly fine,
but they just can't get rid of the heat.
This is a radiator that I just replaced on a car
because it was overheating.
As you can see, it looks perfectly fine,
but it was corroded inside, and once I replaced it,
the car ran normal.
And as expensive as some radiators may be,
you better hope the radiator fixes it
because the only other thing can be a bad head gasket.
And in that case, you have to tear the engine apart.
And that can cost well over $1,000 on most modern cars.
So before you turn the engine down,
it's a good idea to do a combustion leak test on it
to make sure the head gasket is leaking.
It's a simple test where blue liquid is put into a tube
and then the engine is run to see if the blue turns yellow.
If it does, you've got a head gasket leak.
In this case the liquid stayed blue,
so the head gasket is fine.
So the next time your car starts overheating, don't get mad.
Get under the hood and fix it.
And remember, if you've got any car questions, just
visit scottykilmer.com.
And I'll answer them as soon as I get back from this ride.