Boiled over in the driveway

slant6billy

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I wanted to test my new distributor when I got home from work. Started it up, and backed out of the garage. I was letting it warm up and went in the house. Came out and she was boiling over out the cap and the over flow bottle. The E fan blew the fuse. Second time in 6 months. So I shut her down and she was humming ..... not good. I let her cool, replaced the fuse topped off the coolant and went for a ride. My Neighbor is telling me I need head gaskets after that. I tell him, iron block/ iron heads on a mopar don't give up the ghost that easy.

Just a dirty mess. And that new dizzy is the key. Got my lowend back.
 

slant6billy

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I guess the humming noise was the coolant blowing out the cap. The rad ain't leaking and lucky for me the shop that built it would gladly rework it for me. What pisses me off, I built the e fan set up with the thermostatic relay, fan relay (switches the hi current), by pass toggle, and temp probe. My 95 van was my prototype and only fail a fuse once due to a shitty fuse holder. I'm using better fuse holders on the car and they are not what I consider reliable to blow the power fuse twice in 6 months. The fuses are sized to protect the wire and the wire is up sized for the fan motor. Now this mess in the front of the engine needs to get cleaned. I blame my wife for cooking dinner. I ate while the car was warming up (boiling over). Wife nails a good meal every so often and that chicken artichoke spinach was awesome, but don't tell her that.
 

BudW

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Back in ’86 or ’87, I got tired of going through the pre-70 cast iron small block water pumps (I never did find out if just a (long) string of bad water pumps, too much RPM or something was imbalanced) on my ’67 Plymouth with a 340 with A/C.

Anyway, I removed the fan blade and replaced with a pair of cooling fan motors, operated via a pair of flip switches under my dash. The following weekend, I was going to finish the job by wiring one fan motor with a temp sensor and other fan motor to be engaged with A/C – but hadn’t got my parts all gathered yet.

On one cold winder mid-week morning, I went started the car as I was gathering my things. When I came back out to car, it was boiling over hot – in no time – and was doing so for maybe 5 minutes. I left engine run and flipped on both fans. Temp sent down real quick and didn’t have any additional problems for a couple more years with the car (or engine).

Now if coolant wasn’t circulating, it was on a hot day, or I was working the engine hard, I would have been a lot more concerned.

Note: I am considering going back to a pair of electric cooling fan motors when I get the big block installed – possibly. The one big fan motor design will want to occupy the same real estate as the water pump wants to – so that won’t work. A dual design should work.

On an unrelated note, I have not had the cooling fan blade (or clutch) on my ’97 Dodge diesel pickup for three years now. As long as I don’t use the A/C while sitting motionless, then I have no problems. That truck is almost always moving at 30 MPH (or faster) in the summertime, and even A/C works fine (until I come to a stop).
BudW
 

Aspen500

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I think diesel's could idle all day long, in 90 degree temps without a fan and never get too hot. Always get a kick out of those guys that leave their diesel pickups idling in the middle of winter when it's -10 out. By the time they come back out, the gauge is back down to "C". Idling diesel's make pretty much no heat. Reason why so many diesel cars (and maybe some trucks?) have an aux electric heater core so the occupants don't freeze.
 

AJ/FormS

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I once had a 84 Pony, that made so little heat, that in winter time, I had to remove the fan,run a proven 195 stat, 100% block the rad, and use the heater core as the main heat shedder.I even blanketed the block. I still had to wear snow-mobile gear in her, as it barely kept the windshield clear. The floormats got so iced up I had to periodically garage the car long enough to get them out and cleaned off, cuz the gas pedal wouldn't go down all the way. If you know anything about Hyundai Ponys, you will know that even with 100% throttle, it takes about 3 minutes to get up to top speed of right around 62 mph.lol.
Well, I think she would actually do a bit more; and 3 minutes might be an exaggeration. But I'm pretty sure it took over a qtr mile to hit cruising speed.
Try to picture size 11 Snowmobile boots, in a pedal box designed for bare ladies feet. Clutching it was ok,gassing it was so-so, but braking was iffy. The boot more or less just fit in there, between the gas and the clutch, hooee! It was 35 minutes to work, and my tootsies were glad to get there.
Ah those were the days............
 

SlantSixSullivan

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I once had a 84 Pony, that made so little heat, that in winter time, I had to remove the fan,run a proven 195 stat, 100% block the rad, and use the heater core as the main heat shedder.I even blanketed the block. I still had to wear snow-mobile gear in her, as it barely kept the windshield clear. The floormats got so iced up I had to periodically garage the car long enough to get them out and cleaned off, cuz the gas pedal wouldn't go down all the way. If you know anything about Hyundai Ponys, you will know that even with 100% throttle, it takes about 3 minutes to get up to top speed of right around 62 mph.lol.
Well, I think she would actually do a bit more; and 3 minutes might be an exaggeration. But I'm pretty sure it took over a qtr mile to hit cruising speed.
Try to picture size 11 Snowmobile boots, in a pedal box designed for bare ladies feet. Clutching it was ok,gassing it was so-so, but braking was iffy. The boot more or less just fit in there, between the gas and the clutch, hooee! It was 35 minutes to work, and my tootsies were glad to get there.
Ah those were the days............
I can relate to every bit of that! Working at a parts store, my boss has a 93 Ranger we use for deliveries. 4 cylinder with 8 plugs, five speed. You can drive it all day long, highway, back roads, around town, stop and go, and it NEVER gets warm. And the acceleration and top speed are crap. To get to 70mph, you'd have to be going downhill, in 4th gear, with the pedal to the floor. Absolutely no guts in that thing! And the shifter is so stiff, it almost "snaps" into gear. Annoying to drive, in every aspect
 
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