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1994 Plymouth Acclaim Overheating Revisited

Q. I drove the car to work the next day to confirm it would not over heat for these ladies. During that time the radiator heated up, and I knew a lot more corrosion would come out of it when it was warmed. The car now does NOT overheat, but it swings rather quickly from the LOW normal mark to the HI normal mark (within the 'normal' range, but back and forth between the 'normal' tick marks).

It does this rather quickly. In a steady state driving of the car at about 45 mph, I would say the needle cycles from the normal LO tick, to the normal HI tick, and back to the normal LO in about 15 seconds. It does this continuously, not settling at one temperature. This makes me suspect that the head gasket is bad.

Before I left work with the car, I opened the lid of the radiator to top it off one more time before I took the car to the ladies, and the coolant was just plain nasty. It required very, very little coolant to top off however. I would imagine the good coolant is basically a cleaner, and is cleaning the remaining corrosion from the radiator. And as such the coolant just looks corroded terribly. So badly, I couldn't tell you if the coolant is "oily" or not.

When I flushed the coolant by running the engine with a good water pump, the water entering the radiator from the garden hose kept the radiator cool and warmed water was spilling out of the head where the top hose and thermostat were removed. So the radiator remained "cold" when I flushed the system. I expected warm/hot coolant to clean out the radiator more effectively than cold water.

Even though there was more corrosion than I expected to see, the car runs very nice. No stumbling, very smooth and strong acceleration. No smell of coolant at the tailpipe. So, I'm on the fence on this head gasket. Likely the giveaway is the temperature cycling. On my own, I can only confirm the head gasket by a couple of coolant flush and fills from now. Which leads to my plan.

My future plan is to check with the ladies in three months, and flush and fill the cooling system again. I know the coolant will be nasty, so I will plan to check the coolant again three months after that. But, I don't want to just keep flushing and filling the coolant system if the head gasket is bad. Being on the fence about the head gasket is why my plan is to just flush and fill. If it continues to get nasty quickly, then I'll know the head gasket is the cause of the coolant condition.

Sorry for the long story, but do you agree with my current line of thinking? Do you suspect the head gasket from the above info? And I would like to hear your advice on the situation; keeping in mind these ladies are on a VERY fixed income.

Thanks Vincent!

A. It sounds like you made a lot of progress with this vehicle Jason. There is a tester you can buy to check for a blown head gasket. They are fairly reliable and accurate. Basically it is a bulb that fits on the radiator filler neck and if there are exhaust gases in the cooling system it changes color. The rust is not a sign of a blown head gasket.

All the corrosion that you're finding is coming from inside the engine block. Sometimes the most efficient way to clean it out is to pop out the freeze plugs and dig it out with a pick and water hose. I've had to do this more than a few times. Sometimes they are so packed with rust nothing flows through the block. Also, quite often, the rust forms "cells" inside the block that restricts or blocks coolant flow and the only way to clean it is to pop the freeze plugs. I think this is what you're going to have to do to finally resolve this problem.

Also, there is a cooling system bleeder screw. You need to open it while you fill the cooling system to bleed the air out. There is a diagram showing where it is located.

It's going to take some more work to get the system clean and it may never be completely cleaned but you will reach a point where the coolant will stay fairly clean and you may have to just be satisfied with that.

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